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MIND AND BODY: 

THE THEORIES OF THEIK REUTIOS. 



BY 



ALEXANDER BAIN, LL.D.. 
PROFESSOR OF LOGIC IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN. 



CHAPTER I. 

QUESTION STATED. 

Many persons, mocking, ask, What has 
mind to do with brain substance, white and 
gray ? Can any facts or laws regardmg the 
spirit of man be gained through a scrutiny of 
nerve fibres and nerve cells ? 

The question, whatever may be insinuated 
in putting it, is highly relevant, and raises 
great issues. 

The conceivable answers are various : 

First. Granting mind and body to be in our 
present life inseparable, yet the two might 
^fce supposed to have their modes of existence 
altogether distinct, the one being wholly un- 

"^^r^fy. ^^ *^^ ^*^^^- Consequently each 
J^ould have to be studied in its own way, and 
fZ If S^^/t^e alone. On this supposition, 
the study of bram matter might be interest 
mg as physiology and for application to 
medicine and surgery, but would be quite 
beyond the province of the mental philoso- 



Although no intrinsic improbability at- 
taches to this supposition, it is scarcely m 
accordance with what we find in the usual 
course of things. There is no example of 
two agents so closely united as mind and 
body, without some mutual interference or 
adaptation. Still, the union of our incor- 
poreal and corporeal parts is a case quite pe- 
culiar, not to say unique ; and we are not en- 
titled to pronounce beforehand as to the be- 
havior of two such agents in respect of eock 
other. 

Secondly. There might be certain mental 
functions of a lower kind, partially dependent 
upon the material organization.whiletiie high- 
est functions might be of a purely spiritual na- 
ture, in no way governed by physical condi- 
tions. For receiving impressions, in the first 
Instance, we need the external senses ; we are 
dependent on the constitution and workinfrof 
the eye, the ear, the organ of touch, and'' so 
on ; yetthe deeper processes named meniorv, 
reason, imagination— may be pure spirit, be- 
yond and apart from all material urocesses. 



MIND AND BODY. 



In such a case, the inquirer into miaa would 
do well to study the mechanism of the senses ; 
but, for the purpose he has iu view, it would 
be needless to go farther. 

Thirdly. There may be an intimate rela- 
tion and dependence of mind and body all 
through, every mental act having a concur- 
rent bodily change ; yet the two modes of 
operation may be so different as to throw 
no light on each other. No great \aws may 
be traceable on either side, or the laws may 
be couched in such heterogeneous terms that 
we can make no comparison of the two. A 
pleasure and a nervous current are found to 
arise simultaneously ; but the concurrence 
(we may suppose) signifies nothing, suggests 
nothing. There is something to be gained 
by connecting pleasure with a repast, a con- 
cert, or a holiday ; but the mention of nerve 
currents gives no information of a practical 
kind, and (''oes not add to our knowledge of 
the laws of pleasure. 

Fourthly, While allowing it to be possi- 
ble that a thorough understanding of the 
brain would contribute to a knowledge of the 
mind, one might deny that anything yet 
known, or in immediate prospect of being 
known, is of value in that way. Thus the 
obtrusion of physiology at the present stage 
would be superfluous and impotent. 

Fifthly. The position may be taken that 
a knowledge of the bodily workings has al- 
ready improved our knowledge of the men- 
tal workings, and, as we continue our re- 
searches, will do so more and more. 

Which of these suppositions is the truth 
could be seen only after examining the ac- 
tual state of the case. On a theme so pecu- 
liar and so difficult, the only surmise admis- 
sible beforehand would be, that the two dis- 
tinct natures could not subsist in their pres- 
ent intimate alliance, and yet be wholly in- 
different to one another ; that they would be 
found to have some kind of mutual co-opera- 
tion ; that the ongoings of the one would be 
often a clew to the ongoings of the other. 

The form of the interrogation that the fore- 
going remarks are designed to answer, may 
be objected to as purely rhetorical and iu some 
measure unfair. If the matter of the brain 
were the only substance that mental func- 
tions could be attributed to, all the knowl- 
edge that we possess of that organ might not 
avail us much in laying down laws of con- 
nection between mind and body. But such 
is not the fact. The entire bodily system, 
though in varying degrees, is in intimate al- 
liance with mental functions. To confine our 
study to the nervous substance would be to 
misrepresent the connection ; and the knowl- 
edge of that substance, however complete, 
would not suffice for the solutiou of the 
problem. Looking at a child's cut finger, we 
can divine its feefings ; if wo see a smiling 
countenance, we know something cf the 
mental tone of the indivi.lual. 

It might seem that we must yet be a long 
way from understanding an otgan s-o inmule 
and so complicated as iho br!»i[i. If we were 



to confine ourselves to the one mode of post^ 
mortem dissection, we should probably attain 
but a small measure of success. But another 
road is open. We can begin at the outworks, 
at the organs of sense and motion, with which, 
the nervous system communicates ; we can 
study their operations during life, as well as 
examine their intimate structure ; we can 
experimentally vary all the circumstances of 
their operation ; we can find how they act 
upon the brain, and how the brain reacts up 
them. Using all this knowledge as a key, we 
may possibly unlock the secrets of the ana- 
tomical structure ; we may compel the cells 
and fibres to disclose their meaning and pur- 
pose. 

CHAPTER II. 

CONNECTION OF MIND AND BODY. 

The facts showing that the connection of 
mind and body is not occasional or partial, 
but thoroughgoing and complete, are such 
as the following : 

In the first place, it has been noted in all 
ages and countries that the feelings possess a 
natural language or expression. So constant 
are the appearances characterizing the differ- 
ent classes of emotions, that we regard them 
as a part of the emotions themselves. 

The smile of joy the puckered features in 
pain, the stare of astonishment, the quiver- 
ing of fear, the tones and glance of tender- 
ness, the frown of anger, are united in seem- 
ingly inseparable association with liie states 
of feeling that they indicate. If a feeling 
arises without its appropriate sign or accom- 
paniment, we account for the failure either 
by voluntary suppression or by the faintness 
of the excitement, there being a certain de- 
gree or intensity requisite to affect the bodily 
organs,* 

On this uniformity of connection between 
feelings and their bodily expression depends 
our knowledge of each other's mind and 
character. When any one is pleased, or 
pained, or loving, or angry, unless there is 
purposed concealment, we are aware of the 
fact, and can even estimate in any given case 
the degree of the feeling. 

From a variety of causes, we are deeply 
interested in the outward display of emotion. 
The face of inanimate nature does not arrest 
our attention so strongly as the deportment 
of our fellow-beings ; in truth, the highest 

* The fallowing remarks of Mr. Darwin are in 
point : Most of our emotions [he should have said 
all] are so closely connected with their expression, 
that they hardly exist if the body remains passive, A 
man, for instance, may know that his life is in the 
Bxtremest peril, and may strongly desire to save it; 
yet, as Louis XVI. said, when surrounded by a fierce 
mob, " Am I afraid ? feel my pulse." So a man may 
intensely hate another ; but until his bodily frame is 
affected, he cannot be said to be enraged. ("Expres- 
sion," p 2.39.) 

To the like effect Dr. Maudsley observes : " The 
suecial muscular action is not merely the exponent of 
iii(! passion, but truly an essential part of it. If we 
iiy, while the features are fixed in the expression of 
one passion, to call up in the mind a different one, 
wi' sh:ill find it impossible to do BO." ("Body and 
IVfinu,'' p. 30.) 



MIND AND BODY. 



attraction of natural objects is imparted to 
them by a fictitious process of investing them 
-with human feelings. The sun and the moon, 
the winds and the rivers, are less engaging 
when viewed as mere physical agencies, than 
when they are supposed to operate by human 
motives and purposes, loves and hates. 

The interest of the human presence,in all its 
various workings, regarded as symptomatic 
of mental processes, is laid hold of and 
heightened in the fine art of cultivated na- 
tions. To the painter, the sculptor, and the 
\)oet, every feeling has its appropriate mani- 
feslatioD. Not merely are the grosser forms 
of feeling thus linked with material adjuncts ; 
in the artist's view, the loftiest, the noblest, 
the holiest of the human emotions have their 
marked and inseparable attitude and deport- 
ment. In the artistic conceptions of the 
Middle Ages, more especially, the most di- 
vine attributes of the immaterial soul had 
their counterpart in the material body : the 
martyr,the saint, the Blessed Virgin, the Sav- 
iour himself, manifested their glorious na- 
ture by the sympathetic movements of the 
mortal framework. So far as concerns the 
entire compass of our feelings oi' emotions, it 
is the universal testimony of mankind that 
these have no independent spiritual subsist- 
ence, but are in every case embodied in our 
fleshly form. 

This very strong and patent fact has been 
usually kept out of view in the multifarious 
discussions respecting t-he immaterial soul. 
Apparent as it is to the vulgar, and intently 
studied as it has been by the sculptor, the 
painter, and the poet, it has been disregarded 
both by metaphysicians and by theologians 
when engaged in settling the boundaries of 
mind and body. 

A second class of proofs of the intimate 
connection between mind and body is fur- 
nished by the effects of bodily changes on 
mental states, and of mental changes on bod- 
ily states. 

The embarrassment in dealing with this 
group of facts is their number. I shall com- 
mence with a few of the ordinary and recog- 
nized instances, and then refer to the compre- 
hensive generalities arrived at by physiolo- 
gists. 

As to the influence of bodily changes on 
mental states, we have such facts as the de- 
pendence of our feelings and moods upon 
hunger, repletion, the state of the stomach, 
fatigue and rest, pure and impure air, cold 
and warmth, stimulants and drugs, bodily 
injuries, disease, sleep, advancing years. 
These influences extend not merely to the 
grosser modes of feeling, and to such famil' 
iar exhibitions as after-dinner oratory, but 
also to the highest emotions of the mind — 
love, anger, aesthetic feeling, and moral sen- 
sibility. "Health keeps an atheist in the 
dark." Bodily alfliction is often the cause of 
a total change in the moral nature. 

The bodily routine of our daily life is the 
counterpart of the mental routine. A healthy 
man wakens in the morning with a flush of 



spirits and energy ; his first meal confirms 
and reinforces the state. The mental powers 
and susceptibilities are then at their maxi- 
mum ; as the nutrition is used up in the sys- 
tem, they gradually fade, but may be renewed 
once and again by refreshment and brief re- 
mission of toil. Toward the end of the day 
lassitude sets in, and fades into the deep un- 
consciousness of healthy sleep. 

Since the intellectual faculties appear to be 
most removed from the effect of physical 
agencies, I will quote a few facts, showing 
that in reality they have no exemption from 
the general ride. The memory rises and falls 
with the bodily condition, being vigorous in 
our fresh moments, and feeble when we are 
fatigued or exhausted. It is related by Sir 
Henry Holland that on one occasion he de« 
scended, on the same day, two deep mines in 
the Hartz Mountains, remaining some hours 
in each. In the second mine he was so ex- 
hausted with inanition and fatigue that his 
memory utterly failed him ; he could cot rec- 
ollect a single word of German. The power 
came back after taking food and wine. Old 
age notoriously impairs the memory in ninety- 
nine men out of a hundred. 

In the delirium of fever the sense of hear- 
ing sometimes becomes extraordinarily acute. 
Among the premonitory symptoms of brain 
disease has been noticed an unusual delicacy 
of the sense of sight ; the physician suspects 
that there is already congestion of blood, to 
be followed perhaps by effusion. 

Any person fancying that trains of think- 
ing have little dependence on the bodily 
organs should also reflect on such facts as 
these. When walking, or engaged in any- 
bodily occupation, if an interesting idea oc- 
curs to the mind, or is imparted to us by 
another person, we suddenly stop, and remain 
at rest, until the excitement has subsided. 
Again, our cogitations usually induce some 
bodily attitudes (laid hold of by artists as the 
outward expression of thought) as well as 
movements ; and if anything occurs to dis- 
turb these, the current of thinking is sus- 
pended or diverted. Why should sleep sus- 
pend all thought, except the incoherency of 
dreaming (absent in perfect sleep), if a cer- 
tain condition of the bodily powers were not 
indispensable to the intellectual functions ? 

Much stress has been laid upon certain ap- 
parent exceptions to these sweeping rules. 
Under bodily weakness, abstinence, fatigue, 
disease, and old age, individuals occasionally 
manifest high mental energy and elation, and 
great intellectual power. The lives of mar- 
tyrs and heroes are replete with such excep- 
tional vigor. If the inference be that the 
mind, notwithstanding a large amount of de- 
pendence on the body, is still, to a certain de- 
gree, self-supporting and independent, we 
must ask why the fact should be exhibited 
only in a few rare cases ? The supposition 
resembles in partiality and capriciousness the 
Platonic immortality, conferred only on phi- 
losophers. Still, any complete view of the 
relations of mind and body should take ac- 
count of these striking exceptions ; and we 



MI2>rD AND BODY. 



•hall revert to them at h later stage. 

The influence of menial cbangea upon the 
body is supported by an equal force of testi- 
mony. Sudden outbursts of emotion derange 
the bodily functions. Fear paralyzes the di- 
gestion. Great mental depression enfeebles 
nil the organs. Protracted and severe mental 
labor brings on disease of the bodily organs. 
On the other hand, happy outward circum- 
stances are favorable to health and longevity. 

In the personifications so common in our 
early poetry, the various passions are de- 
scribed by the marks that their long domi- 
nance leaves on the bodily figure. In Sack- 
ville's "Induction," Dread is described as 
follows : 

Next taw we Dread all trembling, how he ahook, 
With foot uncertain profTer'd here and ther« ; 

Benumbed of apeech, and, with a ghastly look, 
Searched every place, all pale and dead for fear. 
And Misery : 

His face was lean, and aonte deal pined »way, 
And eke his handa consumed to the bone. 
In considering minutely the evidences of the 
connection of mind and body, we gradually 
perceive that the organ most intimately asso- 
ciated with mind is the brain. Other organs 
have been assigned, at various times, as the 
special seats of mental activity, but these are 
now abandoned. Yet, although the brain is 
by pre-eminence the mental organ, other or- 
gans co-operate ; more especially, the senses, 
the muscles, and the great viscera. 

The peculiar structure of the brain will be 
afterward adverted to. For the present I re- 
mark that it is a very large and complicated 
organ ; it receives a copious supply of blood, 
computed as one fifth of the entire circula- 
tion, a circumstance betokening great activity 
of some kind or other. Now the facts that 
connect the mind with the brain are numer- 
ous and irresistible. Let us rehearse a few of 
them, under the two aspects already stated : 
brain changes affecting the mind, mental 
changes affecting the brain. 

Under the first topic, the commonest ob- 
servation is the effect of a blow on the head, 
which suspends for the time consciousness 
and thought ; at a certain pitch of severity it 
produces a permanent injury of the faculties, 
impairing the memory, or occasioning some 
form of mental derangement. It may also 
remedy derangement ; there are cases on rec- 
cord where a blow on ihe head has cured 
idiocy. 

All those abuses and casualties that impair 
the mental faculties act upon the nervous sub- 
stance. Thus, slimulat iug drugs operate upon 
the nerves. Many instances of imbecility of 
mind are distinctly traced to causes affecting 
the nutrition of the brain. 

The more careful and studied observations 
of physiologists have shown beyond question 
that the brain as a whole is indispensable to 
thought, to feeling, and to volition ; while 
llu^y have further discriminated the functions 
of its different parts. 

Next, as regards mental changes leading to 
brain clianges, or being associated with them, 
w-' can quote very extensive observations. 
TiiUH, after great mental exertion or exci^"- 



ment, there is an increase of the products of 
nervous waste. The alkaline phosphates re- 
moved from the blood by the kidneys are de- 
rived from the brain and nerves ; and these 
are increased after severe exercise of the 
mind. 

Again, violent emotions are among the 
causes of paralysis, which is a disease of the 
nerves or nerve-centres. 

Most decisive of all, under this head, is the 
wide experience of the insane. Among the 
chief causes of insanity must be reckoned ex- 
cessive drafts on the mind— as, for example 
long and severe mental exertion and sud- 
den mental shocks, usually of disaster and 
misfortune, but occasionally even of joy. 

The association of brain- derangement with 
mind-derangement is all but a perfectly estab- 
lished induction. In the great mass of insane 
patients the alteration of the brain is visible 
and pronounced. I may quote as evidence 
on this head a pamphlet by Drs. J. B. Tuke 
and Rutherford, "On the Morbid Appear- 
ances met with in the Brains of Thirty Insane 
Persons." "The brains examined were 
those of patients whose deaths occurred con- 
secutively, and were in no way picked on ac- 
count of any peculiarity." The forms of 
disease exemplified were general paralysis, 
dementia with paralysis, chronic dementia, 
epileptic insanity. In every case there was 
noticed a marked departure in one form or an- 
other from the Jiealthy structure of the brain. 
The authors enumerate nine species of mor- 
bid changes, discovered by microscopical ex- 
amination. The occurrence of a case that 
presented no visible derangement would not 
be a conclusive exception, inasmuch as there 
may be alterations of substance that are not 
visible. It is believed, however, that in all 
cases of pronounced mental aberration, dis- 
ease of the brain is present in a marked form 
A very instructive class of facts may be ad- 
duced, connecting mental action with the 
quantity and quality of the blood supplied to 
the brain. No organ is active without blood. 
The demand made by the brain corresponds 
with the extent and energy of its functions. 
Deficiency in the circulation is accompanied 
with feeble manifestations of mind. In sleep 
there is a diminution of the supply of arte- 
rial blood to the brain. General depletion 
lowers all the functions generally, mind in- 
cluded. On the other hand, when the cere- 
bral circulation is quickened, the feelings 
are roused, the thoughts are more rapid, the 
volitions more vehement ; great mental ex- 
citement is always accompanied with an un- 
usual flow of blood, often outwardly shown 
by the throbbing of the vessels. In delirium 
the circulation attains an extraordinary pitch. 
^ The blood must possess a certain quality, 
involving the presence of certain ingredients 
and the absence of others. Wholesome 
nourishment supplies the first condition of 
nervous and mental activity ; inanition or 
starvation, feebleness of digestion, militate 
against the exercise of the mental functions. 
Moreover, the blood may be abundant and 
rich in nutritive matters, yet the organ of the 



MIND AND BODY. 



mind may be unduly depressed by the ex- 
cessive drafts of the other interests of the 
system, as, for example, the muscles ; under 
great muscular strain there is very little ca- 
pabihty of mental effort. Again, there are 
certain substances, known as stimulants, that 
are considered to supply the blood with an 
element specially provocative of nervous 
change, as alcohol, tobacco, tea, opium, etc. 

The substances that must be absent include 
the so-called poisons, and the impurities of 
the body itself, which several large viscera 
are occupied in removing. The chief of 
these impurities are carbonic acid and urea ; 
either of them left to accumulate in the blood 
leads to mental depression, unconsciousness, 
and finally death. Hence the mental tone de- 
pends no less upon the vigorous condition of 
the purifying organs — lungs, liver, intestines, 
kidneys, skin — ^than upon the presence of 
nutritive material obtained from the food. 

CHAPTER III. 

THE CONNECTION VIEWED AS CORRESPOND- 
ENCE, OR CONCOMITANT VARIATION. 

The dependence of one thing upon an- 
other is ordinarily shown by two classes of 
facts — the first, the presence of the cause fol- 
lowed by the presence of the effect ; the 
second, the absence of the cause fol- 
lowed by the absence of the effect : as when 
we prove that lighting a fire is the cause of 
smoke, or oxygen the cause of putrefaction 
and decay. Of the two methods, the second 
— the absence of the cause followed by the 
absence of the effect — is the most decisive ; 
the preservation of meat by excluding air is 
tlie best proof that air, or some ingredient of 
it, is the cause of putrefaction. More es- 
pecially convincing is the abrupt removal of 
a supposed cause, leading at once to the sus- 
pension of an effect. 

There are cases, however, where we can- 
not make the experiment of removing an 
agent. We cannot get away from the earth 
where we live. We cannot remove the moon 
from its sphere, so as to see what actions on 
the earth depend upon it ; we cannot by an 
abrupt suspension of lunar gravitation prove 
that the tides are very largely dependent on 
lunar influence. 

For such cases, recourse is had to a third 
expedient, which happily solves the diffi- 
culty, and furnishes the proof required. If 
the agency in question, although irremovable, 
passi.^s throug;h gradations whose amount can 
be measured, we are able to observe whether 
the effect has corresponding changes of de- 
gree ; and if a strict concomitance is observ- 
able between the intensity of the cause and 
the intensity of the effect, we have a pre- 
siimption that may rise to positive proof of 
ihe connection. It is thus shown that the 
tides depend on the moon and the sun con- 
jointly ; that the gaseous and liquid states of 
miitter are due to heat. 

In such a question as the connection of 
mind and body, the potent method of remov- 



ing the cause Is not applicable. We cannot 
dissect the compound, man, into body apart 
and mind aj>art ; we cannot remove mind so 
as to see if the body will vanish. We may 
remove the body, and in so doing we find 
that mind has disappeared ; but the experi- 
ment is not conclusive ; for in removing the 
body WG remove our indicator of the mind, 
namely, the bodily manifestations — as if in 
testing for magnetism we should set aside the 
needle and other tokens of its presence. 

Neither can the method of absence be em- 
ployed upon the chief organ of mind — the 
brain. The removal of the biiiin is un- 
doubtedly the extinction of the manifestations 
of mind ; but it is also, except in vpry low 
organisms the extinction of the bodily life. 
Important results are gained by partial re- 
moval of the brain, and we can reason from 
these to what would happen by removing the 
whole. This is the nearest approach we can 
make to the best form of experimental proof. 
The method of concomitance or cofit5>pond- 
ence is, however, applicable to the full ex- 
tent. We can compare the gradations of the 
brain and nervous system through the ani- 
mal series, and observe whether there are 
like gradations in the powers of the mind. 

A considerable time has elapsed since at- 
tention was called by phrenologists to the 
connection between size of brain and mental 
development in human beings. The largo 
heads of men distinguished for high intel- 
lectual endowments, or for great energy of 
character in other ways, have been contrasted 
with the small heads of idiots. The rule is 
not strictly maintained in ever}- instance ; 
occasionally a stupid man has a larger brain 
than a clever man. But these are only indi- 
vidual exceptions to a prevailing arrange- 
ment. When extensive statistics are taken, 
the conclusion is established that great men- 
tal superiority is accompanied with a more 
than average size of brain. 

The following is a table of the brain 
weights of several distinguished men : 

Cuvier 645 oz. 

Dr. Abercrombie 63 " 

Daniel Webster 535 " 

Lord Campbell 585 " 

De Morgan 52 75 " 

Gauss 526 " 

The average male brain (in Europeans) is 
49i oz. , the female 44 oz. (Quain's Anatomy 
7th edition, p 571.) 

Among idiots have been found brains 
weighing 27 oz., 25f oz., 22ioz., 19| oz., 18i 
oz., 15 oz., 13 oz., 8i oz. 

According to Dr. Thurman {Journal of 
Mental Science for 1866), the brains of insane 
persons are2i percent lielow the average of 
the sane. 

The concomitance of size of nervous sys- 
tem with mental power, throughout the ani- 
mal series, is sufficiently admitted for the 
purpose of our general argument. The 
agreement is not strict, because the nervous 
system serves other functions besides those 
that are purely mental. The mere propulsion 
of the muscles demands a large supply of 
nerve force, and animals whose muscles are 



6 



:\iiND a:!^d eody. 



large and active have correspondingly large 
brains. Thus it is that Ihcmaximuui size of 
the brain is reached, not in human beings, 
but in the elephant tribe, and after them tlie 
Whales, whose ponderous bodies demand an 
fenoinious muscular expenditure. The ele- 
phant' !?• brain weighs from 8 to 10 pounds. 
The whale's brain is said to weigh from 5 to 
8 pounds. The brain of one 75 feet long 
was found to weigh 7 pounds ; Dr. Struthers 
found the brain of a young whale, 14| feet 
long, 3 lb. 12 oz., of a tusk whale or sea- 
unicorn 17 feet long, 3 lbs. 14f oz. 

In addition to propulsion of the muscles, a 
considerable amount of nerve force must bQ 
expended in supporting or aiding the pro- 
cesses of organic life — digestion, respiration, 
circulation, and other operations. The 
strongest proof on this point is the very great 
falllmi: off in these various functions when 
the nerve force is monopolized for intense 
mental or muscular exertion. 

It is found tliat tall men, as a rule, have 
larger brains than small men. 

Comparing the increasing size of the brain 
with the increase in mental power, we are 
struck with the smallness of the one increase 
as compared with the other. An ordinary 
male human brain is 48 oz. ; the brains of 
extraordinary men seldom reach Cuvier's 
figure. 64 oz. Now the intellectual force of 
the ordinary man is surpassed by Cuvier in a 
far higher ratio than this. Taking the mere 
memory, which is the basis of intellect, an 
ordinary man cnuld not retain one third or 
one fourth, perhaps not one tenth, of the 
facts stored up in the mind of a Cuvier. The 
comparison of animals with human beings 
would sustain a similar inference. There 
would be no exaggeration in saying that 
while size of brain increases in arithmetical 
proportion, intellectual range increases in 
geometrical proportion. 

A still more important and suggestive cor- 
respondence is discernible in the manner of 
working of the nervous system. Not- 
withstaudiag the radical distinction of na- 
ture between bodily action and mental ac- 
tion, we are surprised to see how closely cer- 
tain circumstances of the one are conjoined 
with similar circumstances of the other. To 
understand this argnment, a brief consider- 
ation must be given to the plan or mechanism 
of the nervous system. 

Undoubtedly the best way of approaching 
the nervous structure is to commence from 
outside appearances. Every one is aware of 
the existence of sense organs and of moving 
organs ; and more than that, each of us could 
recount a great many minute particulars re- 
. specting both classes. Now a study of these 
familiar facts suggests some of the deepest 
arrangements of the nervous structure. 

The sense organs, usually reckoned five in 
number, are all more or less open to view. 
The organ of the sense of touch is the entire 
covering or intcgumei^t of the body, the 
fikin. The others are confined to special 
localities. By a sense organ is meant a por. 
tion of the body exposed to certain agents, 



and, when stimulated, giving birth to feel- 
ings of the mind. Each sense is suited to a 
particular class of influences : touch to solid 
pressures; hearing to aerial pressures ; taste 
to liquid or dissolved matters having certaia 
properties of a chemical nature ; smell to 
gaseous effluvia of a like nature ; sight to the 
rays of the sun or other luminous bodies. 

The moving organs are all parts of the 
bod}'- — head, f'ace, eyes, mouth, throat, neck, 
back, arms, legs, etc., etc. Every one of 
these goes through a great variety of changes 
of posture, alternations, combinations, and 
with greater or less rapidity and continu- 
ance. The motions are nearly all visible to 
the eye. The moving agents are concealed 
from outward view, but can be easily got at 
by dissection. The red flesh of meat, called 
muscular tissue, is a stringy substance made 
up into separate masses called muscles, of 
the most various shapes and sizes, but all 
agreeing in one property, called contractility 
or forcible shrinking. A muscle has its two 
extremities attached to bones or other parts, 
and in contracting it draws the two attach- 
ments nearer one another, and thereby effects 
the movements that we see. A broad spread- 
ing muscle placed over the temple and at- 
tached to the skull at one end, and at the 
other end to the lower jaw, when under con- 
traction, closes the jaw in biting ; the closure 
being accomplished with a certain energy, 
according to the size of the muscle and other 
circumstances. The large muscles of the 
fore part of the thigh are so placed as ta 
straighten the leg when bent at the knee. 
The numerous movements of the human, 
hand need a corresponding number of 
muscles. There are between four and five 
hundred muscles in the human body. 

We must next consider the mutual relation- 
ship of these two sets of organs, sense organs 
and moving organs. Something needs to 
act upon a sense organ in order that we may 
get a sensation ; and something needs to act 
upon a moving organ, or a muscle, in order 
to a movement. Both the one and the other 
are of themselves inactive or quiescent. 
The stimulus of the sense organs is generally 
apparent ; a solid body touching the skin, a 
morsel in the mouth, a perfume to the nos- 
trils, and so on. The stimulants of the mov- 
ing organs are 'not so apparent : their origia 
is internal. 

We are familiar with a large class of in- 
stances where a sense stimulus seems also to 
be a motor stimulus. A light anywhere ap- 
pearing suddenly makes us turn to look at 
it. A morsel on the tongue awakens all the 
movements of mastication. Let us examine 
the facts more closely. My hand is lying 
quiescent on the table ; something touches it 
lightly, a fly, or a feather ; there is a rush 
of activity to certain muscles, and the hand 
is moved away. Well, supposing the two 
things to be remote cause and effect : the 
light contact — cause, the motion — effect : 
what may we suppose as to the intermediate 
links ? Unless the process be something 
quite unique, there must be a channel of 



MIND AND BODY. 



pommunication between the skin of the hand 
and the group of muscles in the shoulder, 
upper arm, and forearm, that unite to with- 
draw the hand. Assuming the concurrence 
pf ten muscles, there must be a ramifying 
thread of communication from any point in 
the skin of the hand to allth(#ie ten muscles. 
If a similar effect were to occur in the foot, 
the part moved v/ould be the leg, showing 
lines of communication between the skin of 
the foot or leg and the muscles of the hip, 
thigh, and leg, of which a certain group 
concur in the single eifect of withdrawing 
the foot. 

Suppose now, instead of a light contact, 
the hand is sharply pinched intbe very same 
place. The previous case shows the evidence 
of lines of communication between the skin 
of the hand and a group of muscles of the 
phoulder and arm, and we are prepared for a 
similar manifestation, perhaps more violent. 
We are not disappointed as to the violence ; 
the same group of muscles appear to be 
roused, and to act more strongly ; the with- 
drawal of the hand is greatly quickened. 
We find, however, that this is not all. With 
the mere arm movements arecoujjled a great 
many more — in the other arm, the legs, the 
body, and the face, besides the more con- 
cealed movements shown in the voice, which 
pmits a cry, shout, or other exclamation. 
We see that any part of the skin of the hand 
is in connection v/ith perhaps two hundred 
muscles ; the notable circumstance being that 
a weak touch does not arouse the wider circle 
of movements. At all events, here is a fact 
showing the exceedingly numerous and com- 
plicated communications between a giver] 
portion of the skin and the moving organs. 
The complication grows upon us as we pur- 
sue our reflections upon ordinary facts. We 
remark that a similar pinch upon any part 
of the skin — hands, arms, legs, back — will 
induce a similar wave of effects ; so that 
every portion of the integument of the body 
has its lines of communication with a very- 
large number of muscles. Nay, farther, if 
we try similar experiments upon the other 
senses, we shall find similar effects ; with a 
slight application, a limited class of move- 
ments ; with a severe application, a wide 
display identical in general character with 
those due to a pinch of the skin. A very 
bitter taste, a malodor, a screeching dis- 
cord, an intense flame, will each awakeo 
movements of limbs, bod}', face, and voice. 
Every one of the senses is in the same exten- 
sive communication with the organs of mo- 
tion. 

The effects of a sense stimulation are not 
ended in a mere jump or attitud perfoimed 
by a particular group < ' muscles ; very often 
there is a long succession of mov ents and 
attitudes. This raises the complication still 
farther. The impetus of the sensation io 
sufficient to stimultite first one . vement, 
llien another, and another ; 'wing a rew 
(lass of lines of communication — those be- 
I'wcen the moving organs themselves. The 
binding of an arm is followed by it^ 



straightening ; the closing of the jaws is suc- 
ceeded by a lateral grinding motion. Now 
continuous movements cannot be maintained 
without a definite communication between 
each movement and its successor ; walking 
and flying are rendered possible by an ar- 
rangement for connecting each movement 
with the one that regularly follows it. 

It is needless, at this stage, to probe deeper 
that system of complicated intercommunica- 
tion between sense organs and moving organs, 
and between one set of moving organs 
and another, involving hundreds or thou- 
sands of connections. These are as yet mere 
matter of inference ; seeing that an effect is 
regularly followed by another at a distance. 
We presume the existence of some means of 
conveying an agency or force between the 
two localities. Not till we examine the in- 
terior of the body do we know what is the 
medium employed. On such examination 
we discover a set of silvery threads, or cords 
of various sizes, ramifying from centres to 
all parts of the body, including both sense- 
surfaces and muscles. These are the nerves. 
The centres whence they ramify are consti- 
tuted by one large continuous lump, princi- 
pally of the same silvery material, occupying 
the skull or cranium as a rounded mass, and 
continuing info the backbone as a long flat- 
tened rod, about half an inch across. The 
mass in the skull is the brain ; the rod in the 
backbone is the spinal cord. The vastly 
numerous intercommunications, above shad- 
owed forth, are effected through the nerves 
and these central masses. 

The centres are, in by far the largest part, 
made up of the same material as the nerve- 
threads ; they contain, however, an additional 
material. To the eye this second material 
has a different tint, an ashy gray appearance, 
as is seen by cutting into any portion of the 
brain or spinal cord of a man or an animal. 
This visible difference enables us to trace the 
distribution, and discover the proportions of 
the two kinds of material. In the brain of 
man and of the higher animals we see a 
curious arrangement of the surface into 
ridges and furrows, called convolutions, run- 
ning in various directions ; and the convo- 
luted surface consists of a thin uniform cake 
of the gray substance, while the interior 
mass is principally made up of the white 
nervous matter. 

The peculiarities of these two sorts of ma- 
terial have been exhaustively studied, and 
the significance of both is more or less per- 
fectly ascertained or surmised. 

Under the microscope, the white matter, 
constituting the nerve-threads wholly and 
the centres in great part, is seen to consist 
of fibres or very minute threads, every visible 
nerve being a bundle of these. The gray 
matter is a mixture of these fibres with a di.«- 
tinct class of bodies, called cells, vesicles, or 
corpuscles — small solid bodies, round, pear- 
shaped, or irregular, with prolongations to 
connect them with the nerves. These two 
elements — fibres and cells — togelhei with in» 
closing membranes, blood-vessels, and cellu> 



8 



MIND AND BODY. 



lar tissue, make up the nervous system, both 
centres and ramifications. 

The first yi^^nificuQt feature of the two 
nervous elements is the size. Both are ex- 
ceedin^^ly minute. The large mass of nerve- 
substance is an aggregation of a very great 
mimber of very small fibres and corpuscles. 
The fibres range in thickness from tsW to 
j^UTi of an inch, the medium or average be- 
ing 7r.iW of an inch. There are two varieties 
of fibre ; the chief, named "white," or 
''tubular" fibres, appear to consist each (1) 
of an outer structureless membrane ; (3) of an 
interior surrounding layer of fatty matter ; 
(o) of a central core or cylinder, which is not 
fatty, but albuminous (nitrogenous, or pro- 
telne) in composition. To this central axis is 
attached the proper function of the fibres ; 
and at the two extremities of the nerves the 
axis appears alone, divested of its two en- 
velopes : it does not exceed Twmnr of an inch 
in thickness. 

The cells or corpuscles are of various shapes 
— round, oval, pear-shaped, tailed, and star- 
like or radiated. They consist of pulpy mat- 
ter, with an eccentric roundish body or nii- 
-cleus, inclosing one or more smaller nuclei, 
surrounded by colored granules. _ They 
Tan:^e from -^-^ to ^f^ of an inch in diameter. 
Although from the smallness in the amount 
of the gray matter as compared with the 
white, and from the greater diameter 
of the corpuscles, the number of these, in 
a cross section, is less than the number of 
fibres, yet as they lie in three dimensions, 
while the nerves lie only in two, their nu- 
merical aggregate is much beyond the aggre- 
gate of branching nerve-fibres, although not 
so great as the total number of fibrous con- 
nections. 

The diagram Fig. 1 represents the cell in 
its various leading forms. 




Fio. 1 . 
Nuch^ated nerve-cells magnified 170 diameters ; a 
■and f) tr«>m the cerehelliim ; c and dhom the medulla 
oblonii.-ita ; n the nucleus of a cell. 

I:i Chap. V. a diagram is given iFig. 3) showing the 
■coutinuatiou of the fibres into iho coipusiclcd or celid. 



Wo may now judge of the immense multi- 
plicaiion of nervous elements in the brain and 
nerves. Estimates have been made of the 
number of fibres in individual nerves. The 
third cerebral nerve (the common motor of 
the eye) is supposed to have as many as fifteen 
thousand fibres. In the sensory nerves the 
fibres are smaller ; and in the large nerve of 
sight, the optic nerve, the number must be 
very great, probably not less than one hun- 
dred thousand, and perhaps much more. 
The number of fibres making up the white 
substance of the brain must be counted by 
hundreds of millions. 

In this enormous multiplication of inde- 
pendent nerve-elements we seem to have the 
suitable provision for the vast number of 
communications needed in the ordinary ac- 
tions of human beings, as above exemplified. 

There are some significant facts regarding 
the ARRANGEMENT of the nerve-elemcnts. It 
is to be noted, first, that the nerve-fibres pro- 
ceed from the nerve-centres to the extremities 
of the body without a break, and without 
uniting or fusing with one another ; so that 
each unfailingly delivers its separate message. 
Without this, the greatness of their number 
would not give variety of communication. 
The chief use of the two coatings or en- 
velopes appears to be to secure the isolatioa 
of the central axis. 

Remark, next, that the plan of communi- 
cating from one part of the body to another 
— as from the skin of the hand to the muscles 
of the arm — is not by a direct route from the 
one spot to the other, but by a nervous cen- 
tre. Every nerve- fibre rising from the sur- 
face of the body, or from the eye or the ear, 
goes first of all to the spinal cord or to some 
part of the brain ; and any influence exerted 
on the movements by stimulating these fibres 
passes out from some nervous centre. As 
in the circulation of letters by post, there is 
no direct communication between one street 
and another, but every letter passes first to 
the central office, so the transmission of in- 
fluence from one member of the body to an- 
other is exclusively through a centre, or 
(with a few exceptions) through some part 
of the nervous substance contained in the 
head and backbone. Every communication 
is centralized ; and, in consequence, there is 
not only great economy of the conducting 
machinery, but also an avoidance of conflict- 
ing messages. 

When we speak of the nerves all ending in 
the nervous centres, we mean the gray sub- 
stance, or the aggregate of fibres and cor- 
puscles. Every nerve ends in a corpuscle ; 
and from the same corpuscle arises some 
other fibre or fibres either proceeding back 
to the body direct, or proceeding to other 
corpuscles, whence new fibres arise, with the 
same alternative. Of the fibres of the brain 
and spinal cord the greater number connect 
corpuscle with corpuscle ; a small number 
go outward to the muscles, forming the 
pathway of communication with the moving 
members. 

The corpuscles ure thus the medium of 



MIND AND BODl* 



connection of in-going with out-going nerves, 
a»d hence of communication between the 
outlying parts of the body. In them is or- 
ganized that system of complicated corre- 
spondence whereby an influence in one part 
can arouse a wave of effects in many other 
parts. They are the crossings or grand junc- 
tions, where each part can multiply its con- 
nections with the remaining parts. There 13 
not a muscle of the body that could not be 
reached directly or indirectly by a pressure 
on the tip of the forefinger ; and this rami- 
fication connection is effected through the 
nerve-cells or corpuscles ; just as, by "means 
of the distribution of post-offlces and lines of 
road, a letter from any village in Europe can 
be speedily sent to any other village. 

A third point to be noted regarding the 
nerve elements— fibre and corpuscle — is their 
MATEKiAL, compositJou, or quality. The ac- 
tive part (the core or central axis) of the fibres 
is composed of particles of an albuminous 
substance. The corpuscles are also made up 
of the same material, combined with fatty 
substances in granules. The substance of 
both is highly unstable, or easily acted on by 
external influences of every kind ; but of the 
two elements the corpuscles are considered 
the most susceptible to change. We can but 
dimly conceive the precise mode of change 
that goes on in the one or in the other ; it is 
a change that, when once begun, propagates 
itself along the whole line of open communi- 
cations ; and it is a change that finds a cer- 
tain limit only by altering the structure of 
the nerve. The restoration from the altere(i 
structure is due to the blood, which circu- 
lates largely among nerve-fibres, but still 
more largely in the gray matter which con% 
tains the corpuscles ; it has been computec^ 
(Herbert Spencer) that five times as much 
blood circulates in the gray or corpuscular 
substance as in the white or fibrous sub- 
stance. In these imperfectly understood 
changes of the nerve-tissue we have the 
embodiment of what is called the nerve-force. 
This is an agent with various powers — me- 
chanical agency, heat agency, chemical 
agency ; all which are due to the molecular 
alteration of the nerve-substance, the com- 
plement of the change being a supply of 
blood in proportion to the force set free. 

To return now to the tracing or corre- 
spondence and concomitance between mental 
acts and bodily changes. One grand corre- 
spondence is already implied, which will be 
afterward more fully discussed — the variety 
and multitude of our mental acts on the one 
hand, and the multitude of nervous elements 
on the other. If our nervous system con- 
sisted at most of one thousand ultimate 
fibres, and one thousand corpuscles, nobody 
could show how these could be manipulated 
so as to execute all the variety of the out- 
ward manifestations of feelings and thoughts. 
But great as is the number and variety of 
mental states, the nervous system, in its pro- 
iMgious extent and multiplication, seems to 
5.how a correspondence by no means inade- 



quate. 

The correspondence of number of elements 
with complicacy of function is seen to ad- 
vantage in the senses. The nerve of sight is 
the largest of the nerves of special sense ; its 
ramifications in the retina are numerous and 
closely set. Nerve-corpuscles occur in that 
part along with the fibres, to increase the 
susceptibility to disturbance under a shght 
shock. 

While in the more intellectual senses — 
sight, hearing, and touch — the nerves have 
their protecting and isolating sheaths corre- 
sponding with the distinctness and separato- 
ness of the parts of the impression ; in 
smell, the nerves are a plexus of unsheathed 
fibres, corresponding with the fusion of the 
odorous impression into one whole, without 
distinction of parts (Spencer). 

It has been pointed out by Mr. Spencer 
that to increase the delicacy of sight and 
hearing, where the impulse on the smface is 
very feeble, there are " multipliers of disturb- 
ance," or means of exaggerating the intensity 
of the shock. Thus, in the eye, the retina is 
composed of ultimate fibrils unprotected by 
their medullary sheath, and of nerve-cor- 
puscles, which are more unstable than the 
substance of the fibres. In the ear, the little 
sand granules (otolites) and the rods, by be- 
ing set in motion increase the action on the 
nerve of hearing. 

The dark pigment of the eye, seen through 
the pupil as a deep brown shade, is an essen- 
tial of good vision, being a means of intensi- 
fying the action of the light. Attention has 
been drawn by Dr. Wm. Ogle to the fact 
that pigment occurs also in the olfactory re- 
gions, and he traces to this fact an increase 
in the acuteness of smell. Dr. Ogle attrib- 
utes the acuteness of the smell of the ne- 
groes to their greater abundance of pigment. 
Albinos and white animals neither see nor 
smell so delicately as creatures that are 
dark-colored. In the membranous labyrinth 
of the ear also, black pigment is found. 
("Anosmia, " by Dr. William Ogle, " Medico- 
Chirurgical Transactions," vol. liii.) 

Facts such as these show how deeply the 
mental character may be affected by the 
structure of the material organs. A small 
difference in the pigment of a sense, by giv- 
ing that sense greater susceptibility, may 
determine the animal's preferences, tastes, 
and pursuits ; in other words, its whole des- 
tiny. In a human being, the circumstance of 
being acutely sensitive in one or two leading 
senses may rule the entire character — intel- 
lectual and moral. The contrast between a 
sensuous and a reflective nature might take 
its rise in the outworks of the sense organs, 
apart even from the endowments of the 
brain. In this case the nervous system 
would follow the cue, instead of taking the 
lead, of the special senses. 

Next, as to correspondences between mind 
and body, in respect to their mode of action. 
Notwithstanding the extreme difference of 



10 



MIND AND BODY. 



Vmj tvro kinds of activity, bodily and mental, 
Ave may yet tind points of coincidence. 

One remarkable coiucideuce is as resi ects 
iime. 

By a series of very ingenious and conclu- 
sive experiments, the rate of passage of the 
nerve- force has been shown to be about 
ninety feet per second. This measure is made 
upon the course of tlie nerve - threads, and 
docs not iucliide the passage through the 
gray matter of tlie centres with their mass 
of corpuscles. Now the time of a complete 
circuit of action, beginning at a stimulation 
of the senses, and ending in certain move- 
ments, depends partly on the time of mov- 
ing along the nerves, and partly on the time 
of passing through the centres, where a num- 
ber of corpuscles must be traversed. Esti- 
mates have been made as to this last opera- 
tion, which, from the nature of the case, is 
likely to be somewhat various ; for not only 
may the central mass to be penetrated be of 
vaiious extent, but also there is a liability to 
conflicting currents. The case of least inter- 
nal delay is what is termed 7'eflex action, 
where a motion answers to a stimulus, with- 
out the intervention of the will, as in the in- 
voluntary start from a x>inch in the hand. 
By expeiimcnts on frogs, Helmholtz foimd 
that a period of from yV to -fo of a second 
was occupied by the reflex act ; now the 
length of the entire nerve4;act could only be 
a few inches, which would hardly occiupy 
the two hundredth of a second, if that tract 
were an uninterrupted nerve-thread. 

The time occupied by a sensation and sub- 
sequent volition has been measured in cir- 
cumstances wiiere there were no conflicting 
impulses. This is done by ascertaining the 
time elapsing between the sensation of a signal 
and the answering by the hand. A compari- 
son is made between two situations ; one 
where the person is prepared beforehand, by 
knowing where he is to be affected and what 
part is to move, in which case the attention 
is turned upon the proper points. The 
other situation is where a person does not 
know which part is to be struck, and which 
part is to be moved ; in this last case he has 
to exercise an active judgment or consid- 
eration, and the difference of time is about the 
V^th of a second. Two persons are separated 
by a screen ; one is to utter a syllable and the 
other to repeat it as soon as possible. If the 
syllable has been agreed upon, the interval of 
repetition occupies from one sixth to one 
fourth of a second ; if it is not agreed upon, 
the interval is one twelfth of a second more. 
The example is put by M. Du Bois Raymond 
of a whale, ninety feet long, struck in the 
tail by a harpoon ; one second would be oc- 
cupied iu transmitting the impression to the 
brain ; a fraction of a second, say one tenth, 
in traversing the brain ; a full second in re- 
turaing the motor impulse ; so that the boat 
would have upward of two seconds for es- 
caping the danger. 

Thus we have physiological evidence, on 
the one hand, that a certain time is occupied 
by the nerve-force, and we have mental evi- 



dence, on the other, that an equivalent time is 
occupied by sensation, thought, and volition. 
Our thinking can never transcend the physi- 
cal pace of the nerve-force. Seldom do we 
think so rapidly as the nerve-force can 
move ; the reason is that we have so often 
to balance opposing considerations ; in other 
words, opposing streams of nervous influ- 
ence come together, and keep one another in 
suspense for a longer or shorter time. The 
experiments above quoted show the mini- 
mum time of a mental decision. 

Another correspondence related to time is 
the period required to produce a feeling or 
emotion. An appreciable interval must be 
allowed for the operation of any stimulus, in 
order that an appreciable feeling may be 
awakened — in order that we may be distinctly 
made conscious of a state of feeling. To be- 
come possessed of a sweet taste, some time 
must be allowed after the first contact with 
the nerve. Now this is in harmony with our 
legitimate inferences as to the nature of the 
nerve-force ; the molecular changes in the 
nerve-centres, which accompany states of 
feeling, occupy an appreciable interval of 
time. Further, a sensation does not decay at 
once, when the object is withdrawn ; nor 
does the molecular activity set up in the cen- 
tres subside at once, when the nervous 
prompting ceases. 

It is a safe conclusion, from our knowl- 
edge of molecular forces, that the molecular 
changes taking place in the nerves and the 
nerve, centres make an alteration of substance 
that soon reaches a limit, incapacitating the 
nerves for further change, until, by rest and 
assimilation, there has been a renewal of the 
old condition. Now to this there is an exact 
counterpart in our conscious experience ; 
every sensation or emotion is most lively when 
first excited, becomes fainter after a time, and 
at last is so completely worn out that the con- 
tinuation of the stimulus has no effect. The 
apparent exceptions and the variations of de- 
gree prove the rule. One of the conditions 
of greater persistence in any feeling is long- 
previous remission ; during a protracted in- 
terval of inaction the nerves and centres have 
been reinforced to a more thin ordinary de- 
gree by the constant presence of nourishment 
while no expenditure has been demanded. 

In the employment of external agents, as 
warmth and food, all will admit that the 
sensation rises exactly as the stimulant rises, 
until a point is reached when the agency 
changes its character, too great heat destroy- 
ing the tissues, and too much food impeding^ 
digestion. There is, although we cannot fix 
it with numerical precision, a sensational 
equivalent of heat, of food, of muscular exer- 
cise, of sound, of light ; there is a definite 
change of feeling, a uniform accession of 
pleasure or of pain corresponding to an 
elevation of temperature of" 10°, 20°, or 
30°. So for each set of circumstances, there 
is a sensational equivalent of alcohol, of 
odors, of music, of spectacle. 

It is this definite relation between outward 
agents and the human feelings that renders 



MIND AND BODY. 



11 



it possible to discuss liuman interests from 
tlie objective side, which is alone accessible. 
We cannot read the feelings of our fellows ; 
we merely presume that like agents will 
affect them all in nearl}^ the same way. It 
is thus that we measure men's fortunes and 
felicity by the numerical amount of certain 
agents, as money, and by the absence or low 
degree of certain other agents, the causes of 
pain and the depressors of vitality. And 
although the estimate is somewhat rough, 
this is not owing to the indetiniteness of the 
sensational equivalent, but to the complica- 
tions of the human system, and chiefly to the 
narrowness of the line that divides the whole- 
some from the unwholesome degrees of all 
stimulants. 

The simplest term that we can employ foi 
a mental state is a shock; a word equally ap 
plicable to the bodily side and to the menta' 
side. A sudden stimulation of the eye, the 
ear, the skin, the nose, is called a shock, from 
its mere outward or physical aspect ; it is also 
called a shock mentally, not because the men- 
tal conscioasness resembles a material thing 
operating on a surface of sense, as a ringing 
bell, but because there is a rapid transition 
from quiescence to excitement ; in which cir- 
cumstance there is an accurate parallelism 
between the otherwise distinct physical and 
mental facts. 

The special modes of our sensations show 
many curious correspondences of the physi- 
cal and the mental. I select the more prom- 
inent. In the first place, let us reflect upon 
the ordinary experience of disease, into which 
mental symptoms enter as a regular concom- 
itant. There are certain tissues that, from 
deficiency of nerves, are but little sensitive, 
as the bones, nails, hairs, etc. ; there being a 
gradation in this respect according to the ex- 
tent of connection with the brain. Now, when 
any derangement operates upon the brain, di- 
rectly, or indirectly, the physician looks for 
definite corresponding mental symptoms. The 
state of the mind is dictated by the state of 
the brain. As an example, note the mental 
symptoms of typhus fever, summed up in 
the phrase * ' febrile oppression. " " There is 
great inaptitude for the exertion of the power 
of thought, or of motion. The expression of 
the face is dull and heavy, absent, puzzled ; 
the patient has the appearance of a person 
made stupid by drink," etc. In short, the 
mind is completely at the mercy of the bodily 
condition ; there is no trace of a separate, in- 
dependent, self-supporting, spiritual agent, 
rising above all the fluctuations of the corpo- 
real frame. The medical practitioner assumes 
that to every mental exchange there corre- 
sponds a physical change ; he is, to this ex- 
lent, a materialist. 

There is an interesting correspondence be- 
tween the physical and the mental, in regard 
tv) a marked distinction among the sensaltons, 
in all the senses, between the acute and the 
voluminous or massive. A sharp prick in the 
fing'jr, or a hot cinder, yields acute tsensa-. 
til UM ; the contact of the clothing of tlie en- 
lire body, or a warm bath, yields voluminous 



pf massive sensations. Now it is observable' 
ibat an acute sensation is due to an intense 
stimulus on a small surface ; a massive sensa- 
tion to a gentler stimulus over an extended 
surface. The contrast is noticeable in every 
one of the senses. A gas-tiame gives an 
acute feeling ; the diffused sunlight gives a 
massive feeling. A high note upon the flage- 
olet is acute ; a deep bass note on the violou- 
cello or the organ is massive. The sea, the 
thunder, the shouting of a multitude are vo- 
luminous or massive from repetition over a 
wide area. Taste is acute, digestive feeling 
is massive. Thus thoroughly does the mere 
manner of external incidence determine one 
of the most notable distinctions among our 
states of feeling. 

CHAPTER lY. 

GENERAL LAWS OF ALLIANCE OF MIND AND 
BODY. 

We shall now give an account of the most 
general laws of connection of mind and 
body. This is a difiicult subject, and far 
from being mature ; yet enough is known to 
gratify curiosity, and to impart useful les- 
sons. 

We have already seen grounds to believe- 
that for every mental shock, every awaken- 
ing of consciousness, every mental transition, 
there must be a concomitant nervous shock • 
and as the one is more or less intense, so 
must be the other. Buch is the most gen- 
eral circumstance that we are able to assiga 
regarding the connection. Although a very 
important point to establish, yet this is too 
vague to satisfy us. 

Mind is now generally admitted to have a 
threefold aspect — three different fuuclions — 
expressed by peeling (including emotion), 
WILL, or volition, and thought or intellect. 
These are a trinity in unity ; they are char- 
acteristic in their several manifestations, yet 
so dependent among themselves that no one 
could subsist alone ; neither will nor intel- 
lect could be present in the absence of feel- 
ing ; and feeling manifested in its complete- 
ness carries with it the germs of the two 
others. Hence, although, in tracing out the 
bodily accompaniments of mind, we shall 
view the three powers in separation, we may 
expect to find certain great laws pervading 
the whole. 

THE FEELINGS. 

We all know pleasure and pain, and we are 
familiar with states of excitement that are 
neutral or indifferent. When feehng is op- 
posed to will and to thought, it is most char- 
acteristically represented by pleasures and 
pains ; these are never confounded with 
thought, and ahhough they are motivo? to tliy 
will, tbcy do not make up the will. TJut 
there are many occasions when we are ex- 
cited, roused, or rendered conscious, without 
being exactly i)leased or pained : and wiien 
we are not profierly either willing or 'drink- 
ing. Such is a meie shock of surprise such 
also are the excitements that often accoui- 



12 



MIND AND DODY. 



pnnv the waning of our proper pletisurable 
and p;iinriil states. After the pain of a fright 
hns passed away, there remains a state of 
feeling as neutral excitement. Now there 
are laws common to feelings generally, and 
laws referring to pleasures and pains partic- 
ularly. 

Ki'Xt to the vague statement that every 
meulal ishock is accompanied by a corre- 
sponi'' ig nervous shock, is the law that as- 
signs a physical counterpart to the most fun- 
damental and general attril)ule of the mind, 
commonly termed the law or principle of 
relativity. 

Law of Relativity. 

(Applies both to Feeling and Thought.) 

C'HANGE of impression is necessary to our 
being conscious. 

First, on the mental side : 

It is a familiar observation that an unvary- 
ing action v.n any of our senses has, when 
long continued, the same effect as no action 
at all. We are not conscious of the pressure 
of the atmosphere. An even temperature, 
such as that enjoyed by the fishes in the trop- 
ical seas, leaves the mind an entire blank as 
regards heat and cold. The feeling of warmth 
is not an absolute, independent, or self-sus- 
taining condition of mind, but the result of a 
transition from cold ; the sensation of light 
supposes a transition from darkness or 
shade, or from a less degree of illumination 
to a greater. To use a familiar illustration, 
a watchmaker is not conscious of the unin- 
termitted ticking of his clocks ; but were 
they all suddenly stopped, he would at once 
become aware of the blank. 

We should be astonished if a law so per- 
vading had not been frequently remarked 
and expressed in literature. It has been rec- 
ognized many times in forms more or less 
definite. One of the most definite expres- 
sions of the law was given long ago by 
Hobbes : " It is almost" (he should have said 
altogether) "all one for a man to be always 
sensible of one and the sanve thing, and not 
to be sensible at all of anything." 

The principle has been recognized more 
fully in its application to the emotions. Peo- 
ple are generally aware that the first shock 
of transition from sickness to health, from 
poverty to abundance, from ignorance to in- 
sight, is the most intense ; and that, as the 
memor}'' of the previous condition fades 
away, so does the liveliness of the enjoy- 
ment of the change. Shakespeare speaks of 
the miser's looking but rarely at his hoards 
for fear of " blunting the fine point of seldom 
pleasure ;" and makes the versatile Prince 
Hal say that 

If all the year were playing holidays. 
To eport would be ae tedious as to work. 

The blessings of leisure, retirement, and 
rest are pleasant only by contrast to pre- 
viaus toil and excitement. The incessant de- 
mand for novelty and change, for constant 
advances in wealth, in knowledge, in the ar- 
rangements of things about us — attest the ex- 
istence and the power of the law of relativity 



in all the provisions for enjoyment. It Is 
a law that areatly neutralizes one part of the 
advantages of superior fortune, the sense of 
the superiority itself, but leaves another 
part untouched, namely, the range, variety, 
and alternation of pleasures. 

It is beyond my present limits to show 
how the principle of relativity appears in aU 
the fine arts under the name of contrast, 
how it necessitates that in science and in 
every kind of knowledge there should be a 
real negative to every real notion or real 
proposition ; straight— curved ; motion— rest; 
mind— extended matter or extended space ; 
how, in short, knowledge is never single but 
always double or two-sided, though the two 
sides are not always both stated. I must be 
content witl. this very bri< illustration of 
the principle itself, and now advert to the 
physical counterpart. 

Secondly, on the physical side. 

The chief point here is to conceive by 
what arrangement of the material organiza- 
tion a continued agency ceases to produce 
that amount and kind of nervous action re- 
quisite for consciousness. 

One fact of the nervous action has already 
been noticed. The nerve-pores and corpus- 
cles, on being stimulated, undergo a process 
of change, whereby their power is gradually 
exhausted ; in consequence of which they 
need remission and repose. Hence, the first 
moments of a stimulus are always the fresh- 
est, and give birth to the most vivid degrees 
of consciousness. This is the condition more 
especially requisite for maintaining a state of 
pleasurable sensibility. The nervous system 
should be duly refreshed or invigorated by 
nourishment and repose, and never pushed 
in any part to the extreme limits of exhaus- 
tion. The same condition applies to our 
power of active energy in every department, 
whether intellectual, voluntary, or emotional. 
Power is at the maximum, under a fresh 
start of renovated nerves, and fails as we ap- 
proach the point of exhaustion. There are 
certain exceptional manifestations, as in the 
common experience of "growing warm" to 
one's work ; the maximum of energy usually 
shows itself some time after commencing : 
an effect due entirely to the increased supply 
of blood following on a certain amount of 
exercise. 

This fact is of the highest practical im- 
portance, and corresponds to some of our 
experiences in connection with the law of 
relativity or change of impression ; but it 
does not amount to the full significance of 
that law. Two circumstances still remain to 
be accounted for. 

In the first place, the dependence of inten- 
sity of consciousness on the degree of the tran- 
sition — as when in passing* from one tempera- 
ture, or one shade of light to another— is the 
most precise and characteristic feature of the 
law of relativity. Now, the degree of transi- 
tion is connected with the degree of disturb- 
ance of the nervous currents, whether it be 
the quickening of the nerves from a dormant 
condition, or the alteration of a settled pace 



MIND JlNB body. 



13 



to which tho srstem has accommodated it> 
self. 

Two views may be taken of the physical 
adjuncts of the state of unconsciousness, the 
state opposed to mental wakefulness. Either 
the nervous mass as a whole is quiescent, that 
is, uniijj;itated by currents of nervous energy, 
which might be supposed to be the condition 
of profound slumber; or currents are still 
kept up, but at an even, settled, unaltering 
pace. There are facts and analogies in fa- 
vor of both views. The mode of stating the 
ultimate physical condition of all conscious- 
ness depends upon how we decide between 
the two suppositions. 

As regards the first, it would seem natural 
to suppose that the nerves pass from the state 
of perfect repose to a state of greater or less 
activity or excitement, according as they are 
roused by stimulation, and that we are made 
conscious accordingly ; while the remission 
of the stimulus, and their own exhaustion, 
tend to quiescence and to unconsciousness. 
If we had no facts pointing to a different 
conclusion, we should adopt this as the most 
conformable to all analogy. But there are 
facts pointing the other way. The nervous 
system is rarely allowed to fall into entire 
somnolence. In profound sleep the reflex 
actions go on ; these, however, we may disre- 
gard, as having detached themselves from 
the conscious circles. Still, although when 
awake we keep up activity more or less, and 
are under the stimulation of several senses, 
yet we often become almost unconscious of 
either the activity or the sensations ; the only 
thing necessary for this result is that these 
shall be for the time monotonous or invari- 
able. The most likely interpretation to be 
pu upon so familiar an experience would 
seem to be that there are always currents of 
nerve-force, but that consciousness disappears 
according as these are unvaried in their de- 
gree. Many of the best-established facts of 
the system are in favor of a certain low de- 
gree of nerve action as existing under every 
variety of state ; such, for example, as the 
muscular tension maintained in the most per- 
fect sleep. 

On this hypothesis our conception is, that 
when all the currents of the brain are equally 
balanced, and continue at the same pitch — 
when no one is commencing, increasing or 
abating — consciousness or feeling is null, 
mind is quiescent. A disturbance of this state 
of things wakens up the consciousness for a 
time ; another disturbance gives it another 
fillip, and so on ; the variety of stimulus in 
the waking state forbidding the perfect 
equilibrium from being attained. In har- 
mony with this supposition is tlie really fitful 
nature of the mind ; the stream of conscious- 
ness is a series of ebullitions rather than a 
calm or steady flow. The calmness that we 
actually experience belongs to a low or mod- 
erate excitement : let there be any consider- 
able intensity of feeling, and the ebullition 
character will start out convincingly promi- 
nent. 

In the present state of our knowledge, no 



certain decision between the two conflicting 
hypotheses should be hazarded. We must 
wait for an experimentum erueis, and perhaps 
the real state of the case is not accurately 
expressed by either. 

The foregoing discussion embraces the law 
of pure relativity, change, or transition, as 
connected with mental wakefulness or con- 
sciousness. But in the concrete examples of 
the mental fact as above expressed, there is 
a further circumstance not involved in what 
has now been brought out. We have made 
allowance for the decay of an impression 
after a certain continuance, leaving still the 
possibility that, after a suitable reuiission or 
interruption, the impression may be renewed 
in all its fulness. 

But now, among the features of those ex- 
periences given from the niental side of rela- 
tivity, this stands out prominent, namely, 
that DO second occurrence of any great shock 
or stimulus, whether pleasure, pain, or mere 
excitement, is ever fully equal to the first, 
notwithstanding that full time has been 
given for the nerves to recover from their ex- 
haustion. There is a certain amount of decay 
in the force of every impression, on the 
after-occasions when it is revived. Such is 
the statement of the law of novelty, with, 
which we are all familiar. 

In all probability we have here only a new 
and more complicated phase of the law of 
transition. We need to suppose that the sys- 
tem accommodates itself to every new state 
of things, that a permanent trace is made 
(through the operation of the retentive power), 
and that under a fresh shock this accommo- 
dation operates by diminishing the interval 
of transition, the difference between the pres- 
ent impression and the pre-established atti- 
tudes and arrangements of the nervous sys- 
tem. 

It is needless to push this speculation be- 
yond a general surmise. Until a more pre- 
cise expression can be given to the modes of 
the nervous action under the single circum- 
stance of mere transition, permanent accom- 
modation being left out of account, we can- 
not hope to deal with the complication of two 
circumstances. Still, a reasonable probabil- 
ity attaches to the hypotheses of physical ac- 
tion that have now been suggested. 

LAW OP DIFFUSION. 

When an impression is accompanied with 
feeling, the aroused currents diffuse them- 
selves freely over the brain, leading to a gen- 
eral agitation of the moving organs, as well 
as affecting the viscera. 

Illustrative Contrast. — The so-called reflex 
actions (breathing, swallowing, etc.) are 
commonly said to have no feeling ; at the 
same time, they are accomplished in a limited 
circuit or channel. 

Note of Explanation. — It is not meant that 
every fibre and cell can be affected at one 
moment, but that a spreading wave is pro- 
duced sufficient to agitate the body at lai ge. 

We have seen generally what it is that ner- 
vous action consists in. A stimulus on a 



MIND AND BODY. 



sensitive surface affects a sensitive nerve. It 
thence proceeds to some ganglionic centre, 
tliere liberating a still more energetic force, 
wliich passes by motor nerves to muscles. 
The completed fact of a nervous shock is a 
muscular movement. But, owing to the nu- 
merous cross connections that make up the 
aggregate of corpuscles, or the gray central 
matter, tiie sensory stimulus proceeds first to 
one corpuscle, and then is diffused to others 
successively, until it affects a great many 
before it reaches motor nerves ; and when 
these are reached the}-- are so numerous as to 
actuate a wide circle of movements. Now it 
is found that consciousness or feeling increases 
with the extent of the wave, or the number 
of the central corpuscles excited and the con- 
sequent number of outward movements 
commenced. Feeling is only nascent in the 
case of a simple sensory stimulus, one passing 
through a limited group of corp-.jscles, and 
producing a simple movement. We cannot 
say that even then consciousness or feeling 
is absolutely non-existent ; but it begins to 
be decisively manifest when the wave spreads 
right and left, by the corpuscular crossings ; 
and it grows with the extension of this wave. 
We assume, as a fundamental fact, that, with 
nervous action, feeling begins. We cannot 
draw a line between nervous action without 
feeling, and nervous action with feeling ; we 
can only indicate a scale of degree. Yet, to 
ail intents and purposes, there is a division 
of nervous actions into unconscious and con- 
scious, which is illustrative of the general 
law of diffusion. 

The reflex actions — breathing, the move- 
ments of the intestines, the heart's action, 
winking, etc. — are known to be stimulated 
through the spinal cord, and its immediate 
continuations at the base of the brain ; they 
do not involve the cerebral mass. The re- 
sponding movements in the case of each of 
them are limited to the work to be done : to 
the chest, in breathing ; to the intestines, in 
propelling the food ; to the muscles of the 
heart, in pumping the blood. These actions 
are unaccompanied with feeling. So, in 
touching the hand of one asleep, we see the 
hand curl up, or the arm move away. This 
is called reflex ; it is prompted through the 
lower centres, without lateral diffusion or 
comnmnication, and it is directed to a single 
local group of muscles. In such examples, 
as formerly seen, the limitation is owing to 
want of force. There are ways open to the 
brain ; but they are not entered at the in- 
stance of a very feeble contact. Still, the fact 
of limitation of range is accompanied by the 
fact of unconsciousness : an isolated response 
is our evidence for contraction of the sphere 
of excitement ; and such isolated responses 
are little, if at all, accompanied with feeling. 

Compare now what happens in a shock, 
say of acute pain, as from a severe smart or 
a wound in the same part, namely, the hand. 
A leflex influence would still operate, and 
give birth to movements of the arm ; but 
tni'se would be a small part of the case. The 
b.idily members everywhere aic put in mo- 



tion ; the features are contracted with a well* 
known expression ; the voice sends out a 
sharp cry ; the whole body is thrown into 
agitation. Nor do the effects slop with mere 
muscular movements ; the face is flushed, 
showing that the circulation is disturbed ; the 
breathing is quickened, or the reverse ; a 
temporary loss of appetite proves that the 
gastric secretions in the stomach are per- 
verted ; the skin is deranged ; and in the 
feminine constitution it would appear as if 
the mother's milk were turned into gall. In 
order to cause this wide circle of effects, the 
influence of the shock, the nerve-currents set 
on, must be not merely intense in degree, but 
highly diffused in their course through the 
brain ; being thus able to reach and to actu- 
ate the general system of out-carrying nerves. 

I have taken an extreme case to present 
the law in its utmost prominence. We 
might vary the illustration, and show that ac- 
cording to the strength of a feeling is the 
extent of the diffusion, as well as the intensity 
of the diffused manifestations. The rise and 
fall of these two facts, in steady concomi- 
tance, is among our most common experi- 
ences ; indeed, our principal means of inter- 
preting the strength of one another's feelings 
is derived from this uniformity. It would 
also be easy to prove that the apparent ex- 
ceptions to the law are not real exceptions ; 
that in very mild states of feelmg, or under 
a faint degree of excitement, the diffused 
wave is not strong enough to excite the 
muscles to an open display ; that the will 
may suppress the display ; that habit may 
suppress it ; that, when the system is so 
strongl}'- pre-engaged by another influence as 
to resist a new diffusion, impressions are not 
felt (as in the insensibility to wounds in a 
battle). 

I will not dwell on these illustrations, and 
will merely add a reference to the operation 
of habit in deadening the feeling that accom- 
panies our actions, to show that, wherever 
this deadening influence has occurred the 
diffused wave is proportionately contracted 
and suppressed In our first attempts to 
write, to cipher, to play on an instrument, to 
speak, or in any other work of mechanical 
skill — the inyvai d sense of labor and difficulty 
is corresponded to by the number of 
awkward and irrelevant gesticulations. On 
the other hand, in the last stage of consum- 
mated facility and routine, the consciousness 
is almost nothing ; and the general quietude 
of the body demonstrates that the course of 
power has now become narrowed to the one 
channel necessary for the exact movements 
required. This is a sort of edu(!ated imita- 
tion of the primitive reflex movement ad- 
duced at the outset ; the comparison is so 
striking as to suggest to physiologists the des- 
ignation of secondary reflex or automatic, 
for the habitual movements. A man at a 
signal post, after long habit, is subjected to 
little or no nervous influence, except in the 
single thread of connection between a certain 
figure depicted on the eye and a certain move- 
ment of the hand ; the collaterals of the 



MIND AND BODY. 



15 



primitive wave have died away, and the ac- 
companying consciousness has fallen to a 
barely discernible trace. 

The law of diffusion might be called in to 
confirm the hypothetical account of the pro- 
cess of accommodation adverted to under rel- 
ativity. The failing intensity of renewed im- 
pressions might be connected with a nar- 
rower and weaker diffusion. Now, our study 
of the physical basis of retentiveness (see 
chap. V.) shows the tendency of all nervous 
states, by repetition, to narrow their compass 
of action, and to run into special channels of 
connection with the states that happen to suc- 
ceed them ; substituting intellectual trains 
for emotional outbursts. 

It is by combining the two laws — relativity 
and diffusion — that we obtain the comprehen- 
sive statement of the physical conditions of all 
consciousness : An increase or variation of 
the nerve-currents of the brain sufficiently ener- 
getic and diffused to affect the combined system 
of the out-carrying nerves {both motor nerves 
and nerves of the viscera). 

To all the varieties of human feeling, there 
correspond (we must suppose) varieties of 
diffusion in the brain, as there correspond, to 
a very considerable extent, varieties in tho 
external manifestation. The outward signs 
are only a small part of the wave of effects 
upon muscles and viscera ; many movements 
receive a mere incipient stimulus, too weak 
for producing action (not to speak of counter- 
impulses of suppression), and most of the 
visceral Iterations fail to show themselves to 
the observer. The diffused wave of nervous 
energy is an inseparable adjunct of feel- 
ing. The consequent manifestations of 
movement and gesture are the universal Ian- 
guage of feeling, and possess a constancy 
that, among all the variations of human char- 
acter, is truly remarkable. This is what I 
previously put forward as the first argument 
for the thorough connection of mind and 
body ; the region of facts most open to vul- 
gar observation, and yet most persistently 
overlooked by the supporters of the dissocia- 
tion or independence of mind and matter. 

The varieties of expression of the feelings 
constitute a study of great interest as regards 
our present theme ; but it will be enough to 
advert, under the following head, to the one 
broad and characteristic distinction of pleas- 
ure and pain. 

LAWS OF PLEASURE AND PAIN. 

Pleasure and pain have certain well-known 
agents or causes, and they have also a char- 
acteristically distinct outcome of demeanor 
and expression. It is an interesting, although 
not very easy, problem to sum these up in a 
general law, or laws, of concomitance of mind 
and body. The principle that regulates feel- 
ing in general is liable to considerable modi- 
fication, according as the feeling assumes the 
character of either pleasure or pain. 

As a preliminary remark, it must be allowed 
that pleasure and pain are diametrically op- 
posed, like cold and hrat, up and down, debt 
and credit, plus am. minus. The two are 



mutually destructive, they neutralize each 
other, like cold and heat. Hence the circum- 
stances present in connection with the one 
must be absent, if not reversed, in the case of 
the other ; whatever mode of nervous excite- 
ment is allied with pain, its opposite must be 
allied with pleasure. Thus one explanation 
should include both. 

LAW OP SELF- CONSERVATION. 

The remark has occurred to various specu- 
lators that there is a close connection between 
pleasure and high vitality, or the vigor of 
the sj^stem, and between pain and the causes 
of diminished vitality or the feebleness and 
exhaustion of the system. Plato and Aris- 
totle, in their views regarding pleasure, in- 
cluded its being a restorative to nature. 
Kant has a few striking expressions of the 
same tendency, although their effect is 
greatly spoiled by the context,: " Pleasure is 
the feeling of the furtherance, pain of the 
hindrance of life." A very large number of 
the facts may be included in the following 
statement, which may be termed the Law of 
Self-Conservation : 

States of pleasure are connected with an in- 
crease, states of pain with an abatement, of 
some or all of the vital functions. 

This principle resumes such well-known 
experiences as these : the pleasures of healthy 
exercise, and of rest after toil, the pain 
of fatigue ; the pleasures of nourishment and 
pure air, the pains of hunger, inanition, or 
suffocation ; the pleasures of health gener- 
ally, the pains of bodily injury and disease. 
These few instances sum up the ruling facts 
of every one's daily life and bodily and men- 
tal condition. 

^ There are, however, a few startling excep- 
tions. For example : cold may be painful 
and yet wholesome, as in the cold bath, and 
under the keen bracing air. But this excep- 
tion, on closer view, confirms the general 
rule, while rendering its application more 
definite. Cold undoubtedly depresses, for a 
time, one very sensitive organ, the skin, per- 
haps also the digestive organs ; while, in 
moderate degree (that is, the degree consti- 
tuting wholesomeness) it exalts, through the 
capillary circulation, the lungs, the heart, 
the muscles, and the nerves ; and the con- 
trast teaches us that, hs far as immediate pleas- 
ure is concerned, we lose more by depressing 
the functions of the skin and the stomach 
than we gain by increasing the power of the 
heart, the lungs, the muscles, or even the 
nerves themselves. 

Another very remarkable exception is the 
painlessness of many diseases, together with 
the occasional absence of all pain, and even 
the presence of great comfort, in the sick-bed 
and in the final decay of life. This is the 
case so often pointed to as evincing the tri- 
umph of the mind over the body. 

The remark already made in the case of 
cold must be still further extended to meet 
this case. The connection of pleasure with 
vitality, and of pain with feebleness or loss 
of function, does not apply to all organs 



16 



MIND A.ND BODY. 



alike ; some are comparativ^ely insensitive, 
their degeneracy and decay seem unaccom- 
panied witli feeling ; while in others the 
■raaliest functional derangement is produc- 
tive of pain. Muscular weakness does not 
give pain, unless we are compelled to efforts 
beyond our strength ; also the nervous sys- 
tem may be enfeebled as regards thinking 
power without producing discomfort, pro- 
vided we are allowed perfect repose. On 
the other hand, anythmg that impairs nutri- 
tion, as indigestion, leads to immediate dis- 
comfort ; and still more decided is any par- 
tial stoppage of the purifying organs, as the 
intestines, \he liver, the skin, the lungs, or 
the kidneys. There are forms of degenera- 
tion of the heart, the lungs, ihe kidneys, and 
other parts, that do not interfere with the 
usual functions ; their evil consists in pre- 
paring the way for a sudden break-down. 

The powers of the nervous system are va- 
rious and even mutually opposed. Intel- 
lectual feebleness, decay of memory, and in- 
capability of thought are not painful in them- 
selves. There is, probably, a distinct power 
of the nervous system, connected with the 
pleasurable tone of the mind, which may not 
fail, when the intellect fails, or may fail, 
while the intellect is yet vigorous ; a func- 
tion very unequally manifested in different 
individuals. 

The mental effect of diminished power in 
the various organic functions is ultimately 
realized by some failure in the brain itself. 
Could we suppose the brain to maintain all 
its functions, derangement might exist in 
other organs without depressing the mind. 
Strictly speaking, this is an impossible con 
currence. But there is sometimes an ap- 

g roach to this situation, namely, when the 
lood, such as it is, flows in excess to the 
brain, supporting its powers at the expense 
of all other interests ; an arrangement that 
cannot be permanent, although it may last 
for a little time. In such a contingency 
there is an extraordinary exaltation of men- 
tal function, including a hilarious and even 
ecstatic enjoyment. It is the state that nar- 
cotics may produce, for a brief moment, in a 
constitution partially wrecked ; and it occa- 
sionally occurs in the closing hours of life. 
"We often see patients in the last stage of 
consumption, still entertaining the most san- 
guine prospects of recovery ; a proof that, 
instead of being mentally depressed, they are 
in the opposite or joyous condition. On this 
it is remarked by Dr. Patrick Nicol (" Med- 
ical Reports of West Hiding Asylum for 
1872," p. 199) "that blood, from which 
tubercle is deposited, appears to have that 
peculiar injurious property- for the brain 
which excites delirium ;" in extreme cases, it 
is productive of raving madness. 

The general principle, connecting pleasure 
with increase of vital power, receives further 
confirmation from the outward displays un- 
der pleasure and pain ; the animation, stir, 
and vigor under the one, and the drooping 
and collapse under the other. 

The primary law of feeling, that movement 



is in proportion to intensity of stimulation, 
is greatly modified according as the feeling 
is pleasurable or painful. Mere intensity of 
stimulus operates to give intensity of move- 
ment ; but the character of the feeling as 
pleasure, as pain or as neutral excitement, 
must also be taken into account. 

The designations for pleasure are very sig- 
nificant of the difference : the epithets — 
lively, animated, gay, cheerful, hilarious — 
are expressive of unusual activity ; the epi- 
thets — sad, miserable, woe-begone, depressed, 
sorrowful, dejected, crestfallen — suggest lan- 
guor, prostration, inactivity. "With the 
young, we see in especial prominence the 
union of the two facts — mental delight and 
bodily energy. The examination of the or- 
ganic functions conclusively shows that in a 
pleasurable mood these are raised in 
eflBciency ; the respiration is quicker, the 
pulse is better, the digestive functions are ex- 
alted. In depression and pain, all is reversed. 
An apparent exception to the law occurs in 
the stimulating effects of an acute smart, and 
in the contortions and struggling of pain gen- 
erally. This, however, is no real exception, 
as the following considerations will show. 

In the first place, many painful shocks are 
simply and solely depressing ; they have not 
even the pretence or appearance of rousing 
the energies. A blow on the shin is utterly 
prostrating ; the irritation of a raw wound 
has much the same effect. Certain parts of 
the body, on being squeezed, compressed, or 
tortured, yield an intense pain that at once 
quenches all the energies. Cold, in its pain- 
ful forms, excepting, perhaps, the contact 
with a small congealed surface, which re- 
sembles a scald, is mainly depressing ; when 
it reacts to exalt the functions, its painful 
character disappears. Privation, calamity, 
severance of ties^ shame, remorse, are accom- 
panied with general prostration of the ener- 
gies. 

In the next place, the vehement muscular 
stimulation due to acute xjains can be shown 
to be accompanied with loss of power in the 
organic functions ; it is thus a mere spas- 
modic display, the result of a spendthrift 
energy. The stomach, the heart, the lungs, 
are all depressed, to support a wasteful ex- 
ertion of muscle. 

That the exertion is forced and factitious 
is further proved by the lassitude that suc- 
ceeds ; the muscles themselves show an ex- 
haustion very different from what would fol- 
low on a similar amount of healthy exertion, 
or in the excitement of joy.* 

Still, an acute smart is one mode of tempo- 
rarily raising the energies ; the acuteness im- 

■■ Ttiere have occurred many instances of death, or 
meatiil derangement, from a (shock of grief, pain, or 
calamity ; this is in accordance with the general law. 
Instances are also recorded of death and insanity 
from excessive joy ; but they are eo rare as to have 
the character of exceptions. Extreme intensity of 
shock, whatever be its character, is unhinging ; but 
there is a wide difference in the consequences, accord- 
ing as it is the intensity of pain or the intensity of 
pleasure. From the one shock, people, as a rule, re- 
cover slowly and w th difficulty ; from the other they 
recover rapidiy ai.d easily. 



MIND AND BODY. 



17 



plying that the pain is limited to a very small 
circle of nerves, so that the injurious effects 
are confined, while the stimulus suffices to 
arouse a wave of force-bearing nerve-cur- 
rents. The light smart of a horsewhip is 
enough to waken the energies, without dam- 
aging the vitality. The pain of a flogging, 
which multiplies smarts of still greater in- 
tensity, is utterly exhausting to the whole 
system. 

In this law of pleasure and pain we have 
the key to the leading varieties of expression 
of the feelings. The organs of expression by 
movement are primarily the features, next 
the voice, lastly the movements and gestures 
of the body at large — head, trunk, and ex- 
tremities. In pleasurable emotions, these 
are unquestionably rendered active ; the 
grimaces, gestures, and attitudes show an 
accession of active power. The notable cir- 
cumstances in this display are the general 
erection of the body, the opening up of the 
features, the powerful exercise of the voice ; 
all showing that the extensor muscles, which 
are by far the largest, are strongly stimu- 
lated. When we have surplus energy to ex- 
pend, we stretch and extend the body in 
preference to bending and relaxing it ; the 
weight of the body itself is borne in the one 
case and not in the other. Any additional 
strain, as in walking, lifting weights, rowing 
a boat, is borne by the extensor muscles. It 
is the size of these that makes the muscular 
figure, the fulness of the calves, the thighs, 
and the hips. 

On the other hand, pain (not violently 
acute), dejection, depression, leads to the re- 
laxation of all these powerful muscles ; 
hence a general stooping and collapse of the 
figure, showing that the springs of muscular 
force have dried up. The difference of the 
two situations, as regards the carriage of the 
whole body, is most marked. Compare the 
victor in a triumph with one of his captives 
--the attitude of the beater with the beaten. 
And as regards the face, how much is sug- 
gested by the one descriptive trait, "His 
countenance fell " ! 

To this general law we find a remarkable 
exception that puzzled the great ph3^siologist, 
Mtiller of Berlin, and was left unsolved by 
Sir Charles Bell. It refers to the expression 
of the face. While the movements under 
pleasure are obvious and energetic — the rais- 
ing of the eyebrows, the drawing outward of 
the angles of the mouth, there are also some 
appareutly energetic movements characteris- 
tic of pain — the lowering of the eyebrows, 
the wrinkling the forehead, the drawing 
down of the angle of the mouth, the pouting 
of the lower lip. Now, to have one set of 
muscles acting strongly under pleasure, and 
another setactingstrongly under pain, would 
merely be two modes of activity ; it would 
not represent opposition or contrariety. Yet 
pleasure and pain are as opposite as heat and 
cold. What causes the one arrests or de- 
stroys the other ; and no theory of the physi- 
cal accompaniments is complete that fails to 
bring out this contrariety. It would be a 



self-contradictory account of solvency and 
insolvency, to say that one was property in 
the funds, and the other property in laud ; 
and there is an equal contradiction in having 
muscles of pleasure and muscles of pain. 

One way of diminishing the difficulty is to 
carry out a little further the foregoing con- 
trast of the attitudes in pleasure and in pain 
—the one erect, the other collapsed. In ad- 
dition to remitting the powerful exertion of 
extending the body, one might suppose the 
flexor muscles extended to make it still more 
thoroughly collapse, to distend to the utmost 
the strong erecting muscles. Now, one effect 
of this would be to release the muscular cur- 
rents, and to set free the blood and the nerve- 
force in favor of the other interests of the 
system— digestion, etc., which are the first to 
suffer in great pain or in dejection of mind. 
The cost of the flexor effort is but small, and 
the return in the liberation of the nervous 
and muscular currents might more than com- 
pensate for that cost. The contrariety of the 
two states would be saved, while there would 
still be an active prompting under pain. 

Applying this explanation to the face, we 
should have to consider whether the muscu- 
lar opposition in it could show, in the one 
case, the exertion of powerful muscles, and 
in the other, their relaxation by the operation 
of those of smaller calibre. A slight exertion 
of the small muscle that corrugates the eye- 
brows may be supposed to perfect the relax- 
ation of the more powerful muscle of the 
scalp that raises the eyebrows ; a small stream 
of energy in the muscle surrounding the 
mouth relaxes more thoroughly the strong 
zygomatic muscles, and the buccinator,which 
are distended in smihng and laughter. By 
the emploj'ment of a slight force, we may be 
supposed to release a greater quantity ; so 
that,^ after all, the positive exertion of those 
specific muscles of pain would merely aid in 
renouncing muscular energy on the whole. 
We should thus assign as the reason why a 
forced " sadness of the countenance makes 
the heart better," that, by the employment 
of a certain amount of stimulus, we more 
thoroughly abate the stimulation of the mov- 
ing organs at large, and allow blood and 
nervous force to pass to the enfeebled viscera 
—the digestion, the lungs, the heart, the skin 
— by whose amelioration the mental tone is 
decisively improved.* 

* A new turn has been given to the explanation of 
the facial attitudes under pleasure and pain, first by- 
Mr. Spencer, in the new edition of his Psychology, 
and next in Mr. Darwin's recent work on Expression. 
The novelty lies in applying the Doctrine of Evolu- 
tion, or inheritance, to account for tlie more special 
and characteristic modes of expression of the face, 
as, for example, frowning, smiling, pouting, and de- 
pressing the corners of the moucli. The same doc- 
trine is also applied to account for the expresbiou of 
the more marked passions, as fear, love, anger. 

It does not lie'within the plan of this work to dis- 
cuss the details of the human feelings, eiilier in tneir 
internal characters or in their outward display ; nor 
is it my purpose to enter into the mrrits of the doc- 
trine of Evolution as applied to the mind. So i"ar as 
I have here gone, in assigning the most general lav. a 
of connection of mind and body. I am not at variance 
with any views set forth by tliese two great authori- 
ties, altnough I have ijiven far more prominence than 



18 



MIND AND BODY. 



An examination, after 8ir Charles Bell, of 
the two great convulsive outbursts — laugh- 
ter and sobbing— gives an unequivocal sup- 
port to the law ; tlie one signifies in all its 
points the accession of vital force ; the other 
equally signifies loss, failure, or depriva- 
tion of energy. " The whole expression of 
a man in good spirits is exactly the opposite 
of one suffering from sorrow" (Darwin, p. 
213). In both cases there may be energetic 
displays ; but while the energy of laughter 
leaves no sting behind, the energy of convul- 
sive grief is succeeded by utter prostration. 

The law now illustrated is named the law 
of self-conservation, because without it the 
system could not be maintained. Inasmuch 
as we follow pleasure and avoid pain, if pleas- 
ure were injarious and pain wholesome, we 
should soon incur entire shipwreck of our 
vitality, as we often partially do, through 
certain tendencies that are exceptional to the 
general law. 

LAW OP STIMULATION OR EXERCISE. 

To sUmulate or excite the nernes, with a due 
regard to their condition, is pleasurable ; to 
pass this limit painful. 

The mere presence of nourishment, that 
is, blood, does not evoke ail the nervous ac- 
tivity that the blood can pay for, and the 
nerves maintain with safety ; the case is 
ratner that the blood yields up force at the 
instance of stimulated nerve-currents. Now 
this stimulation, when in the proper degree, 
is connected with pleasure, while there is a 
degree that is always painful ; both points 
varying with the condition of the individ- 
i:al. 

either of them to the law that connects pleasure with, 
an accession of vital power, and pain witli depressed 
vitality. As regards my first law— called the law of 
Diffusion— both ilr. Spencer and Mr. Darwin have 
treated it under different phraseology, but in substan- 
tially the same way. It is the third of Mr. Darwin's 
three laws for explaining the phenomena of expres- 
sion—termed by him the law of the " direct action of 
the excited nervous system." 

Mr. Darwin furnishes incidentally many striking 
illustrations and confirmations of the law of pleasure 
and pain. Among the appearances of protracted 
grief, he remarks : " The circulation becomes lan- 
guid ; the face pale ; the muscles flaccid ; the eyelids 
<iroop ; the head hangs on the contracted chest ; the 
lips, cheeks, and lower jaw all sink downward from 
their own weight." (p. 178.) Let any one compare 
this with the expression of a bride and bridegroom at 
the beginning of their honeymoon. 

Mr. Darwin's second law, called by him the prin- 
ciple of Antiibesis, occasionally leads him to exem- 
plify the opposing efi'orts of pleasure and pain, as one 
of the various forms of Antithesis, or the tendency 
to pass from one expression to its opposite, even 
although the opposing mental state would not gener- 
ate that opposed expression. The principle of Op- 
position has been recognized in the text under two 
ibrms— first, the fundamental law of pleasure and 
Pain (self-conservation), and secondly, the employ- 
ment of the small flexor muscles to complete the con- 
traction of the powerful extensors, and secure a more 
perfect attitude of repose and renunciation of nervous 
stimulus. 

The violent contortions of acute pain are referred 
by Mr. Darwin to inherited habits of exertion for get- 
ting rid of pain. He would eviu regard the excited 
movements of animals under delight as partly associ- 
ations with hunting and the search for food ; al- 
thouirh he freely admits that the state of pleasure is 
it£elf accompMnied wirii increased vigor of the circu- 
lation and the nerve-force. 



If we commence the illustration from the 
side of pain, we may notice as two leading 
circumstances, (1) conflict, and (2) intensity. 

First. To say that all conflicting stiraula* 
tions are painful is merely to state a conse- 
quence of the former position. Conflict la 
waste of vital power, and is likely to be ac- 
companied by a depression of the mental 
tone. This simple and obvious maxim sums 
up a wide experience ; it includes the pleas- 
ures of harmony and the pains of discord ; 
the pleasures of a free scope to all our im- 
pulses and the pains of constraint, obstruc- 
tion, and thwarted aims ; the pleasure of dis- 
covering similarity, agreement, consistency, 
and unity, the pains of inconsistency and 
contradiction. 

Secondly. As regards intensity. Violent, 
excessive, and sudden stimulations induce 
pain on various grounds. In opposition to 
the law that connects pleasure with vital 
energy, they cause a momentary exhaustion 
of the power of the nerves affected ; and 
they may further be considered as originat- 
ing a conflict with the prevailing currents of 
the brain, which do not adjust themselves at 
once to the new impetus. Thus though, on 
the general principle of relativity, they waken 
up a strong feeling, they sin against the con- 
ditions of pleasurable feeling. 

Conflict and violence, then, are two prin- 
cipal modes of painful stimulation, and ex- 
plain a very considerable number of our 
pains. In most, if not in all, of the painful 
sensations of three of the senses — namely, 
touch, hearing, and sight — the pain is either 
discord or excess. The smarting acuteness 
of a blow on the skin, of a railway whistie 
close to the ear, of a glare of light — are due 
to the mere degree or excess of the stimulus. 
In hearing and in sight, there are, in addi- 
tion, the pains of discord. In the two re- 
maining senses, taste and smell, we cannot 
make the same afiirmation. We do not know 
what is the mode of nervous action in a bit- 
ter taste, as quinine or soot ; and we cannot 
say that the transition from sweet to bitter ia 
a transition from moderate stimulus to an ex- 
cessive one. It may be that the power of the 
nerve is exhausted under a different kind of 
influence from mere violence of stimulation ; 
but no certain knowledge exists on the sub- 
ject. The same remarks apply to smell. 

These observations on the negative aspect 
of stimulation — the aspect of pain — contain 
by implication the positive aspect. Stimula- 
tion, as such, is pleasurable. " Man loves sen- 
sation," said Aristotle. For the eye to see, 
for the ear to hear, for the skin to touch, are 
in themselves agreeable. "We cannot affirm, 
with respect to the ordinary gratification of 
the five senses, that they increase vitality — 
they may do so slightly ; we can say only 
that they draw upon the vitality to maintain 
nerve-currents that give pleasure. It is agree- 
able to spend a certain portion of the forces 
of the system in nervous electricity ; it is 
not agreeable to push this expenditure be- 
yond a certain point. And when the stimu- 
lation has passed this point, degenerating into 



MIND AND BODY. 



19 



pain, the pleasurable tone can be restored 
only by replenishing the vital power, accord- 
ing to the principle that connects pleasure 
with vitality, 

I may remark, as confirming all that has 
been said, what is our common experience 
and practice with regard to pleasure, namely, 
the great value of le stimulants that are not 
intense but wluminous — that moderately 
affect a large sensitive surface, or many 
nerves at once : a familiar instance is fur- 
nished by the warm bath ; another is the 
music of a full band. The same happy effect 
springs from change or variety ; the stimu- 
laticn is multiplied, and no one part pushed 
to exhaustion. 

The last point that I will advert to is the 
obscure subject of narcotic stimulants — al- 
cohol, tea, tobacco, opium, and the rest. 
These operate a very little way, if at all, in 
in giving new vitality ; they draw upon 
our vitality, even till it is much below 
par, postponing the feeling of depression 
till another day. It is probable that the in- 
fluence of the narcotics is complicated, and 
not the same for all. "We may safely say 
respecting them, that they are the extreme 
instance of the principle of stimulation, as 
contrasted with the principle of vital conser- 
vation ; they are the large consumers, not the 
producers, of vitality ; they expend our stock 
of power in nerve-electricity in a higher de- 
gree, and with a more dangerous license, 
than the ordinary stimulants of the senses. 

The physical theory of pleasure and pain 
has a direct bearing on punishment and 
_ prison discipline. I happened to be present 
at a debate on that subject, in one of the sec- 
tions of the British Association, at the Man- 
chester meeting in 1861. The speakers were 
bent upon suggesting modes of punishment, 
painfully deterring, and yet not injurious to 
the convict's health. I could not help re- 
maiking, from my conviction of the doctrine 
now expressed, that the object aimed at is 
all but a contradiction. There is, if any, the 
barest margin between the infliction of pain 
and the destruction of vital power. If the 
first of the two maxims above stated (the 
connection of pleasure with vital conserva- 
tion, etc.) expressed the whole truth, there 
would be no margin at all ; but under the 
second maxim (stimulation), there might be 
room to operate as proposed. Stimulants 
cannot, as a general rule, be said to increase 
vital power ; they are usually on the verge 
of destroying it, and frequently do destroy it. 
Consequently, the withJwlding of stimulation 
— alcohol, tobacco, tea, cheerful light and 
spectacle, the sounds of busy life, society, 
amusing literature, etc. — cannot be said nec- 
essarily to abate the vital forces, and may 
be instrumental in conserving them. Never-, 
theless, if these are withheld to the extent of 
making them strongly craved for (and if 
they are not, their loss does not punish), the 
state of craving is an internal conflict that 
lowers the general vitality. If the craving 
dies away after a time, the depression ceases, 
and so does the punishment. Then, again, it 



might seem that the application of what is 
'painfully salubrious would exactly hit the 
mark ; as the cold bath, the well-ventilated 
and but moderately-heated cell, cleanliness, 
measured food, steady industry, and regular- 
ity of life. Yet unless the convict takes 
kindly to these various measures, they are 
more depressing than wholesome ; and if his 
system does adapt itself, that is, if they end 
in reforming his constitution and habits, they 
are no longer punishment. In the debate in 
question, one of the speakers, who I believe 
was ofiicially connected with a London 
prison, remarked that, as a rule, discharged 
convicts are deteriorated in constitution. 
The opposite allegation has sometimes been 
made ; but between the two I will venture to 
arbitrate by saying that, in whatever cases 
the confinement operates as a serious punish- 
ment, the deterioration is alniost certain. 
The same speaker observed that corporal 
punishment has this advantage over impris- 
onment—that, while it is a severe deterring 
smart, it does not to the same degree inflict 
permanent damage.* 

THE WILL. 

The will, volition, or voluntary action is, 
on the outside, a physical fact ; animal mus- 
cle under nervous stimulation is one of the 
mechanical prime movers ; the motive power 
of muscle is as purely physical as the motive 
power of steam ; food is to the one what fuel 
is to the other. The distinguishing peculiar- 
ity of our voluntary movements is that they 
take their rise in feeling, and are guided by 
intellect ; hence, so far as will is concerned, 

* The two modes of punishing by physical torture 
are severe muscular strain (hard lal)or, the crank, 
tread-wheel) and flogging The one operates upon 
the nerves through the muscular tissue, the other 
through the skin. There is no intention of injuring 
either the muscles or the skin in themselves ; the sole 
object is to produce a painful condition of the nerves. 
Yet, as it is hardly possible, in severe punishments, 
to avoid permanent damage to the immediate tissue 
—muscle or skin — some plan might be devised for af- 
fecting the nerves alone. Kecourse might be had to 
Electricity. By electrical shocks and currents, and 
especially by Faraday's magneto-electric machine, 
which constantly breaks and renews the currents, any 
amount of torture might be inflicted ; and the grad- 
uation might be made with scientitic precision. How 
far the nerves would sufter permanent injury by a 
severe application of electricity is still a matter for 
inquiry ; probably not more than by an equal amount 
of suffering through the muscular or skin punish- 
ments ; while, at all events, the damage would be 
confined to the nervous tissue. The punishment 
would be less revolting to the spectator and the gen- 
eral public than floggings, while it would noi, be less 
awful to the criminal himself ; the mystery of it 
would haunt the imagination, and there would be no 
conceivable attitude of alleviating endurance. The 
terrific power exercised by an operator, through the 
lightest finger touch, would make more deeply felt 
the humiliating prostration of the victim. 

If capital punishments are to be perhiauently main- 
tained, much could be said for discarding strangula- 
tion, and substituting an electric shock. But there 
beiuCT a growing opinion unfavorable to the extinction 
of life, as a mode oi' punishment, the combinition of 
imprisonment with electric inflictions could bo grad- 
uated to a severity of endurance that should satisfy 
all demands for retribution to offenders. It was re- 
marked by Lord Roniilly that imprisonment with 
periodic floggings would be far worse than immediate 
execution. The idea would be too painful to the 
community at large ; while a more refined application 
of pain would pass unheeded, except by iho sufEerer- 



30 



MIND AND BODY. 



the problem of physical and mental concom- 
it;\ncd is slill a problem either of feeling or 
of intellect. The extension and improvement 
of our voluntary power is one large depart- 
ment of our education ; and the process of 
education is wholly included under the intel- 
lect. I shall confine myself, then, as regards 
the will, to a short statement of the funda- 
mental processes involved in it, one of which 
has just been before us under the feelings, 
and IV ill again appear as playing a part in the 
intellect. In the will altogether I reckon up 
three elements ; two primitive, instinctive, or 
primordial, and the third a process of educa- 
tion or acquirement. 

The first primordial element is called the 
spontaueous energy or surplus activity of the 
system, or the disposition of the moving 
organs to come into operation of themselves 
previous to, and apart from, the stimulation 
of the senses or the feelings ; the activity 
being increased when such stimulation con- 
curs with the primitive spontaneity. 1 think 
there is evidence to show that the profuse ac- 
tivity attendant on health, nourishment, 
youth, and a peculiar temperament called the 
active temperament, springs in a very great 
degree from inherent active power, with no 
purpose at first but merely to expend itself ; 
and that such activity gradually comes under 
the guidance of the feelings and purposes of 
the animal. It is the surplus nervous power 
of the system discharging itself without wait- 
ing for the promptings of sensation. In tlie 
course of education the spontaneity is so 
Jinked with our feelings as to be an instru- 
Kient of our well-being, in promoting pleas- 
ures and removing pains. The voice by 
mere spontaneity sends forth sounds, the ear 
controls and dirf els them into melody, and 
the wants of the system generally make them 
useful in other ways. 

Mere spontaneity, however, "would not 
give us all that we find in the impulses of the 
will. Being the overflow of vital power, it 
would show itself only whenever and 
wherever there is such an overflow. We 
want a kind of activity that shall start forth 
at any time when pleasure is to be secured, 
or pain to be banished, and that shall be di- 
rected to the very points where these effects 
can be commanded. 

For such a power we must refer to the 
great fundamental law of pleasure and pain 
— the law that connects pleasure with in- 
crease of vital power, pain with the diminu- 
tion of vital power. Tliis law we may look 
upon as in many respects the foundation, the 
mainstay of our being ; it is the principle of 
seU-conservation — the self-regulating, self- 
acting impulse of the animal system. When 
anyhow we come into a mood of joyful ela- 
tion, the physical state corresponding is an 
exaltation of vital energy to the muscles, the 
organic functions, one or other, or both ; and 
thiit exaltation is an increase of the activity 
that is bringing the pleasure. The first act of 
masticating a morsel of food develops a 
jileasurable feeling to the conscious mind, 
uuJ a concurrent siimulus of heightened ac- 



tivity to the body ; the heightened activity 
vents itselt in the parts actually moving at 
the time — the masticating organs, the cheeks, 
jaw, and tongue, which in consequence pro- 
ceed with redoubled vigor, the pleasure thus 
feeding itself. In that connection we have, 
as 1 believe, the deepest foundation of the 
will. On the other hand, if, in the course of 
energetic movements of mastication, a false 
step occurs, the teeth embracing by mistake 
the skin of the lip or the tongue, there is 
mentally a smart of pain, and physically, I 
think, a destruction of nervous power through 
the shock, and the destruction of power is at 
once and directly a cessation of the active 
currents impelling the mouth and the jaws. 

Such I conceive to be the groundwork of 
volition, greatly, but never entirely, overlaid 
in mature life by a large superstructure of 
acquired connections between feelings and 
specific movements. Without some such 
foundation 1 see no way of beginning the 
work of voluntary acquisition, nothing to 
make our movements relevant to our state of 
feeling at the time ; moreover, it is the check 
that is always ready to step in and supersede 
our acquired habits. At any moment a burst 
of pleasure will raise our energies, a shock of 
pain (not being an acute exciting smart) wdl 
depress them ; in the one case the cause of 
the pleasure, if our over-activity, will be 
maintained with increase ; in the other case 
the energies are arrested, and if they are 
causing the pain, it will cease with them. 
The bursting out of a cheerful light in a dark 
labyrinth spurs us on without our gomg 
through the formality of what we call a reso- 
lution of the will ; while a course leading us 
to darkness, strangeness, and uncertainty 
will be arrested by the mere sinking away of 
our energies before we can even begin to de- 
liberate. Our course in life from first to last, 
although most at first, is trial and error, 
groping and feeling our way, acting some- 
how, and judging of theresiult ; and the gen- 
eral tendency of the law in question is to sus- 
tain us when w^e are m a good track, to turn 
off the steam when we are in a bad track. 

CHAPTER V. 

THE INTELLECT.* 

I NOW approach the most difficult part of 
the subject of the ph^'sical basis of mmd — 
namely, what regards the intellect. That the 
feelings are closely connected with physical 
manifestations is \)2i\.^nt and undeniable. 
But thought is at times so quiet, so far re- 
moved from bodily demonstrations, that we 
might suppose it conducted in a region of 
pure spirjt, merely imparting its conclusions 

* This chapter may not perhaps be easily understood 
by readers unfamiliar with the theory of our intellect- 
ual powers. Jtis not ess<ntial to the general argu- 
ment ; while it is more purely hypothetical and specu- 
lative than the foregoing chapter on the Feelingts and 
the Will. The i)urpose of inserting it Is to give com- 
pleteness to I he account of the most general laws of 
connection of mind and body, and to deal with what 
must ever be the most difficult problem growing out 
of that connection. 



2iii;d axd bod^ 



21 



tlirougli a material intervention. Unfortu- 
nately for this supposition, the fact is now 
generally admitted, that thought exhausts 
the nervous substance, as surely as walking 
€xhausts the umscles. Our physical frame- 
work is involved with thought no less decid- 
edly than with feefiug ; and it is requisite to 
define, if possible, the terms of the alliance. 

In the positions already advanced, with re- 
spect to the feelings and the will, we have 
also some of the physiological foandations of 
thought. 

The first position, named the Principle of 
Relativity, or the necessity of change in or- 
der to our being conscious, is the groundwork 
of thought, intellect, or knowledges, as well 
as of feeling. We know heat only in the 
transition from cold, and mce mrsd ; up and 
down, long and short, red and not red — are 
all so many transitions or changes of im- 
pression ; and without transition we have no 
knowledge. Relativity applied in this way 
to thought coincides with the power called 
discrimination — the sense or feeling of differ- 
ence, which is one of the constituents of our 
intelligence. Our knowledge begins, as it 
"were, with difference ; we do not know any 
one thing of itself, but only the difference 
between it and another thing ; the present 
sensation of heat is, in fact, a difference from 
the preceding cold. 

The second position, named the Law of 
Diffusion — or the connection of feeling with 
spreading currents, as opposed to impulses 
that go the round in a single line — has bear- 
ings upon thought likewrse. Taken along 
with the principle of relativity, or change of 
imj)rrssiou, it allows us, as we shall see pres- 
ently, to embody the power of discrimina- 
tion, or to assign its physical connections 
with the currents of the brain. 

The third position had reference t® the 
radical contrast of pleasure and pain, and 
w'as meant to bring out the connection be- 
tween pleasure and a rise of vital power, and 
between pain and a fall of vital power. Al- 
though complicated with the fact that stim- 
ulus, as well as nourishment, is requisite to 
quicken the nerve-currents to the maximum 
of pleasure, this principle is a clear starting- 
point for our voluntary action, otherwise 
without a starting-point ; fur the will mainly 
consists in following the lead of pleasure and 
drawing back from the touch of pain. 

Our intelligence, in the /^rac^zca^ view, may 
he considered as an enormous expansion of 
the range of operations under the first law of 
being — the law of self-conservation. To 
work for the attainment of pleasure while 
yet in the distance, and for the abatement ol 
pain also in the distance ; to perform actions 
that are only intennediate in procuring the 
one or avoiding the other : all this is but vol- 
untary action enlarged in its compass by 
knowledge of cause and effect, means and 
end ; in other words, by our intelligent cog- 
nizance of the order of the world. 

Intellect has long been divided into a vari- 
ety of functions, or modes of operating, called 
faculties, under such names as memory, 



teason, judgment, imagination, conception, 
and others ; which, however, are not funda- 
mentally distinct proces&es, but merely differ- 
ent applicationrf of the collective forces of 
the intelligence. We have no power of mem- 
ory in radical separation from the power of 
reason or the power of imagination. The 
classification is tainted with the fault called, 
in logic, cross-division. The really lunda- 
mental separation i>f the powers of the intel- 
lect is into three facts calitd (1) discrimina- 
tion, the sense, feeling, or consciousness of 
difference ; (2) similaiiiy, the sense, feeling, 
or consciousness of agreement ; and (3) reten- 
iiveness, or the power of memory or acqui- 
sition. These three functions, however much 
they are mingled, and inseparably mingled, 
in our mental operations, aie yet totally dis- 
tinct properties, and each the groundwork of 
a different superstructure. As an ultimate 
analysis of the mental powers, their number 
cannot be increased or diminished ; fewer 
would not explain the facts, more are un- 
necessary. They are the intellect, the whole 
intellect, and nothing but the intellect. 

Let us take them in order. 

I. Discrimination. — This we have just 
seen is the intellectual aspect of relativity, or 
the law of change of impression. When any 
new currents are commenced, or when ex- 
isting currents are increased or abated, wo 
become mentally alive ; and if we are already 
conscious, a change comes over our con- 
sciousness. It can be easily made apparent 
that discrimination is the very beginning of 
our intellectual life. If we are insensible to 
the change from hot to cold we are forever 
disqualified from knowing the phenomenon 
of heat ; to be unaffected by changes of light 
is another way of expressing blindness ; to 
be affected, or made conscious, by very mi- 
nute shades of color is to be highly intelligent 
in regard to color. Wherever a man is more 
knowing than his fellows, he sees distinc- 
tions where they see none. The banker de- 
tects a bad note after it has deceived many 
other people. 

As to the physical embodiment of this 
fact : When we consider the vast compass 
of our disciiminative sensibility — the seem- 
ingly innumerable shades of our conscious- 
ness in correspondence with the variety of 
sensible appearances, not to speak of our 
emotions and inner life — we begin to be 
aware of the need of an apparatus of great 
range and complication. Take any of the 
senses, as sight, and consider all the degrees 
that we can mark between total blackness 
and the highest solar refulgence. Consider 
next the colors and their shades, and we shall 
find that the sensible gradations of effect are 
Very numerous ; in a mind highly endowed 
for color, these felt gradations would be 
counted by hundreds. Again, in the ear, a 
tnusician's discrimination of pitch extends, 
perhaps, to several hundred sounds. Our 
discrimination of articulais sounds is co-ex- 
tensive with the combined alphabets of all 
the languages known to us. 

Asyuming, as we have found reason lo do*- 



22 



MIND AND BODY. 



that every iil'W impression on the sense is an 
aheraliou of the currents uloncj the track, of 
the nerves — both the main channel and the 
colhiletals of the diffusion — we are led to be- 
lieve that consciousness is varied in two 
ways. First, according to ilie ingress made use 
of, or the particular organ and the particular 
nerves employed. Thus, from the eye to the 
ear is a perceptible transition aud a new 
phase of consciousness. So in touch, in 
taste, and smell, we have a characteristic 
consciousness for each sense througii all the 
varieties of simsation of that sense. We 
should never confound a color with a taste. 
Nay, more : in the higher senses, and es- 
pecially in sight and in touch, we have differ- 
ences of consciousness according to the part 
of the organ affected ; if it were not so, we 
should all be in the proverbial position of not 
knowing the right hand from the left. 

In the second place, consciousness is obvi- 
ously varied according to the energy, or other 
fcculiarity, of the impression made on the same 
organ, or part of an organ, and the same 
nerve. A greater impression makes a greater 
feeling. This of course is what we aie pre- 
pared for on any hypothesis. The currents 
are made more intense, and a change of ner- 
vous intensity is a change of consciousness. 
In the senses, however, we have qualitative 
differences of sensation, which are more em- 
barrassing to account for. To detine the 
change of current in the optic fibres by red, 
yellow, aud blue, and the subsequent course 
of diffusion, is not within our present knowl- 
edge. It has been supposed that there are 
separate fibies for the primitive colors, 
which would somewhat relieve the difficulty, 
and reduce the different modes of action to 
mere differences of intensity or degree. 

These two circumstances, namely, the sep- 
arate consciousness of separate nerves, and 
the changing intensity of the currents, we 
may regard as the primitive modes of diversi- 
fying the consciousness ; but it is in the 
countless combinations of these simple ele- 
ments that we are to look for the physical 
concomitants of our ever-varying conscious- 
ness. The union of different stimuiaiions m 
different fibres and in different degrees, 
would unavoidably give birth to a complex 
and modified consciousness. 

II. So much for discrimination. Let us 
now glance shortly at similarity, or agkee- 
MKNT. Besides the shock of difference, or 
change, the mind is affected by the shock of 
agreement in the midst of difference. If a 
certain sensation, as redness, is felt, and if, 
after we have passed to something else, it 
recurs, there is a flash of recognition, a re- 
instatement of the first experience together 
with a feeling of recognition or identification. 
This is th€ feeling or consciousness of agree- 
ment , it also is a great intellectual founda- 
tion. Coupled with discrimination, it ex- 
liausts the meaning of what we call knowl- 
edge ; to know anything, as a tree, is to dis- 
criminate it from all differing objects, aud 
identify it with all agreeing objects. The 
extension of oar knowledi^e of the tree is the 



extension of our sense of its differences and 
of its agreements. Similaritj', in another 
view, is a great power of reproducing our 
past experience and acquisitions, an exten- 
sion of the resources of memory. By it, 
principally, we" ascend the brightest heaven 
of invention, " We are perpetually reminded 
of objects by the presence of something of a 
resembling kind. Looking at a cathedral, 
we readily bring to mind other cathedrals ; 
hearing an anecdote, we are almost sure to 
recall some one similar. Our reason essen- 
tially consists in using an old fact in new cir- 
cumstances, through the power of discern- 
ing the agreement ; we have sown one field, 
and seen it grow, and we repeat the process 
in another field. All this is a vast saving of 
the labor of acquisition ; a reduction of the 
number of original growths re-quisite for our 
education. When we have anything new to 
learn, as a new piece of music, or a new 
proposition in Euclid, we fall back upon our 
previously formed combinations, musical or 
geometrical, so far as they will apply, aud 
merely tack certain of them together in cor- 
respondence with the new case. The method 
of acquiring by patchwork sets in early, aud 
predominates increasingly. 

III. I might go on to apply the views 
respe(;ting the cerebral structure and work-, 
ings, in divining the physical process under- 
lying this power of similarity ; but we shall 
be still better occupied in grappling with the 
remaining intellectual function, retentive- 
NEss, or memory, whose explanation would 
mak(3 all the rest easy enough. 

It is related by the younger Scaliger that 
two subjects especially engaged the specula- 
tive curiosity of his father, the celebrated 
Julius Caesar Scaliger ; these were, the cause 
of memory and the cause of gravity. With. 
regard to the last-named of the two — the na- 
ture of gravity — we have, since the New- 
tonian discovery, learned to consider that as a 
solved problem, and a good example of what 
constitutes finality in scientific inquiries : 
uamel}', when we have generalized a natural 
connection to the utmost, ascertained its pre- 
cise law, and traced its consequences. That 
matter gravitates — that the property called 
inertia, or resistance, is united with the sepa- 
rate property of attraction at all distances, 
we accept as a fact, and, unless indeed we 
saw our way to generalizing it one step far- 
ther, we ask no more questions. So in the 
subject before us. There are two very dis- 
tinct natural phenomena, the one we call con- 
sciousness or mind ; the other we call matter 
and material arrangements ; they are united 
in the most intimate alliance. It is for us to 
study the nature of each in its own way, to 
determine the most general laws of the alli- 
ance, and to follow them out into the ex- 
planation of the facts in detail ; and then, as 
wiih gravity, to rest and be thankful. 

The great scholar might, however, be for- 
given for wondering at meinory. There is 
nothing marvellous in nature's having allied 
this and the other mental functions with tk 



HIND AND BODY. 



23 



6odii^' jt^afzation ; for unless it be that the 
facts called mind and the facts called mate- 
BiAL are the most widely contrasted facts of 
our experience, and that we have, as it were, 
a meeting of extremes, there is no more mys- 
tery in tliis union than in the union of iner- 
tia and gravity, heat and light. It is because 
we have something beyond the usual endow- 
ments of natural things, in the possibility of 
storing up in three pounds' weight of a fatty 
and albuminous tissue done into fine threads 
and corpuscles, all these complicated group- 
ings that make our natural and acquired 
aptitudes and all our knowledge. If there 
were sermouo in stones, we should be less as- 
tonished when they proceed from brains. 

Retention, acquisition, or memory, then, 
being the power of continuing in the mind 
impressions that are no lunger stimulated by 
the original agent, and of recalling them at 
after-times by purely mental forces, I shall 
remark first on the cerebral seat of those re- 
newed impressions. It must be considered 
as almost beyond a doubt that " the renewed 
feeling occupies the very same parts, and in Hie 
same manner as the oiHginal feeling, and no 
other parts, nor in any other manner that 
can be assigned." 

This view is the only one compatible with 
our present knowledge of the working of the 
nerves, although there formerly prevailed and 
still prevail other views : the doctrine of a 
common sensorium or cerebral closet where 
ideas are accumulated, quite apart from the 
recii-ient apparatus. But that view is so 
crude as hardly to merit discussion. If we 
suppose the sound of a bell striking the ear, 
and then ceasing, there is a certain continu- 
ing impression of a feebler kind, the idea or 
memory of the note of the bell ; and it would 
take some very good reason to deter us from 



* Great consequences follow (as it seems to me) from 
this view of the physical embodiment of intellect. 
There grows out of it a tendency of ideas to become 
the full reality ; as when a person strongly imagining 
a kick, can scarcely refrain from the performance. 
The comparative weakness of the nerve-currents ac- 
companying the idea, and the superior force of pres- 
ent realities, render the manifestation unfrequent in 
•waking hours, and under ordinary conditions. Any 
circumstances, on the one hand, tending to intensify 
the idea, or, on the other hand, removing the pressure 
of the actual, exhibit the influence in full operation. 
The mesmeric sleep is the extreme instance ; the 
ideas suggested to the mind of the patient exclusively 
determine his conduct. 

No fact of the human constitution more decisively 
proves the connection of intellect with the nervous 
system and with the moving organs and the senses. 
The intimacy of the alliance is shown at its utmost. 

This principle is a supplementary law of the will ; 
it is a stimulus to action, over and above the primary 
and proper motives of the will (pleasure and pain), 
and often leads to conduct at variance with our inter- 
ests as represented by procuring pleasure and ward- 
ing oflf pain. A complication of the principle has 
been greatly discussed of late, under the designation 
of the "power of the imagination over the body;" 
according to which ideas can induce healthy and mor- 
bid changes on the system. By thinking strongly on 
the hand, we affect the local circulation of the blood, 
and by persistent attention vfQ might tet up a dis- 
ea-ed action in the part. Applications of this i)eculiar 
etfect have been suggested in medicine, and the con- 
ditions and limitations of it are deserving of careful 
study. It has been happily made Uiie of by Mr. Dar- 
win to explain blashing. 



the obvious inference that the continuing im- 
pression is the persisting (although reduced) 
nerve-currents aroused by the original shock. 
And if that be so wiUi ideas surviving their 
originals, the same is likely to be the case 
with ideas resuscitated from the past — the re- 
membrance of a former sound of the bell. 
All observation confirms the doctrine. The 
mental recollection of language is a sup- 
pressed articulation, ready to burst into 
speech. When the thought of an action ex- | 
cites us very much, we can hardly avoid the 
actual repetition, so completely'' are all the 
nervous circuits repossessed with the origi- 
nal currents of force. The lively remem- 
brance of a pleasant relish will produce the 
same expression of countenance, the very 
smack of the reality. Moreover, it has been 
determined by experiment that the persistent 
imagination of a bright color fatigues the 
nerves of sight.* 

The comparative feebleness of remembered 
states or ideas is, we may presume, an exact 
counterpart of the diminished force of the re- 
vived currents of the brain. It is but seldom 
that the reiuduced currents are equal in en- 
ergy to those of direct stimulation at first 
hand. 

And now, as to the mechanism of reten- 
tion. 

For every act of memory, every exercise 
of bodily aptitude, every habit, recollection, 
train of ideas, there is a specific grouping, 
or co-ordination, of sensations and move- 
ments, by virtue of specific growths in the 
cell junctions. 

For example, when I see a written worr'| 
and, as a result of my education, pronouncj^ 
it orally, the power lies in a series of definite ^ 
groupings or connections of nerve-currents' 
in the nerve and centres of the eye, with 
currents in motor nerves proceeding to the 
chest, larnyx, and mouth ; and these group- 
ings or connections are effected by definite 
growths at certain proper or convenient cell 
crossings. 

The considerations that support us in 
hazarding this proposition are such as the f ol-i 
lowing • 

In the first place, it is merely stating the 
mode of action appropriate to the structure 
and known workings of the brain. If the 
brain is a vast network of communication 
between sense and movement — actual and 
ideal — between sense and sense, movement 
and movement, by innumerable conducting 
fibres, crossing at innumerable points — the 
way to make one definite set of currents in- 
duce a second definite set is in some way or 
other to strengthen the special points of junc- 
tion where the two sets are most readily con- 
nected, so that a preference shall be estab- 
lished, and in that particular line of commu- 
nication. The special growths accompany- 
ing memory must operate at these cell or cor- 
puscle junctions. 

Our mode of conceiving the so-called re- 
flex actions illustrates what I mean. A stimu- 
lus proceeds along a given nerve to a cenlial 
point — a group of cells ; and there is a defi- 



24 



MIND AND BODY. 



nite response to a certain movement, as in 
the closed hand of the sleeper. Now the 
hii;:her connections of mind are of the same 
essential diameter, though far surpassing in 
complication ; the system of freely diffused 
lines of communication in the brain is an ob- 
stacle to that ready selection of an outgoing 
ciiannel : and there is at first much conflict 
and distraction, until circumstances sliall de- 
termine preference outlets and until structu- 
ral growths confirm these preferences. 

The position is also fortified by the effect 
of diseased points in the brain which are 
known to destroy memory, often sweeping 
awa}" some definite class of acquisitions or 
recollections, and leaving others untouched. 
We have now on record many remarkable 
cases of the destruction of the second and 
third frontal convolutions of the brain ac- 
companied by loss of speech, while the in- 
tellectual faculties generally were unim- 
paired. 

In the next place, acquisition has a limit 
determiaed by the amount of the nervous 
substance, that is, the size of the brain. 

We are apt to be carried away with a 
vague notion that there is no limit to acquire- 
ment, except our defect of application or 
some other curable weakness of our own. 
There are, however, very manifest limits. 
We are all blockheads in something ; some of 
us fail in mechanical aptitude, some in mu- 
sic, some in languages, some in science. 
Memory, in one of these lines of incapacity, 
is a rope of sand ; there must be in each case 
a deficiency of cerebral substance for that 
class of connections. 

Then, again, there is a tendency in acqui- 
sitions to decay unless renewed. Hence, a 
time must come in the progress of acquisition 
when the whole available force of growth is 
needed in order to conserve what we have al- 
ready got ; when, in fact, we are losing at 
one end as much as we gain at the other. 

It is further to be remarked that much of 
our mental improvement in later life is the 
substitution of a better class of judgments for 
our first immature notions, these last being 
gradually dropped. There is not necessarily 
more room occupied in the brain by a good 
opinion than by a bad, when once the good 
opinion is arrived at ; or by an elegant ges- 
ture as compared with an awkward one. 

Even taking the regular student, whose 
life is spent in amassing knowledge, we find 
tliat his memory at last, if it does not refuse 
the new burdens, gives them place by letting 
go much that has been previously learned. 
Moreover, a wide scholarship turns into a 
knowledge of the places where knowledge is. 
It is only a limited range of ideas that any 
one can command at any one time ; although 
in the course of a life we may shift into sev- 
eral successive spheres of intellectual range. 

Further, we have seen, in alluding to the 
pAVer of similarity or agreement, that one 
;ic(iui iu m is made to serve on many differ- 
v\\. icoasions. A new word is a group of 
old a'ticulations ; a new air to a musician, a 



new manipulation to a chemist, is merely a 
slight variation of some previous acquirement. 

Once more. In a vast number of instances, 
what we retain is not so much certain ready- 
made combinations, as the means for putting 
these together when required. This is well 
exemplified in the economy of names. By 
means of combining generic and specific 
names, two or three thousand words can 
suffice to name one hundred thousand plants. 
So in ordinary language : the suffix '* ness," 
understood once for all, enables us to convert 
thirteen hundred adjectives into abstract 
nouns ; so that the recollection of these ab- 
stract nouns involves no independent effort. 
And, in like manner, instead of having in 
the memory trains of formed sentences for 
every occasion, we have a certain number of 
forms that can be freely accommodated to 
the matter we wish to express. 

And finally, the great principle of the will 
is, by its nature, self-correcting, after trial 
and error. This comes in place of many 
nice adjustments, and renders a sentient 
framework superior to all other machines. 
It is not necessary to the power of imitation 
that a sound heard should at once suggest 
the exact vocal articulation for reproducing 
the effect : something may be at first sug- 
gested not quite up to the sound : the sense 
of discrepancy then checks it ; other move- 
ments arise and are likewise checked ; and 
so on till the coincidence is reached. 

I will now venture upon a hypothetical 
comparison between these two things — our 
acquisitions on the one hand, and the num- 
ber of the nervous elements of the brain on 
the other. 

A certain number of definite groupings or 
co-ordinations must be allowed to our vari- 
ous instincts ; as, for example, the combined 
movements of the heart, intestines, and 
lungs, and the special modifications of them 
in swallowing, coughing, and sucking. The 
simplicity and the limitation of these acts are 
such as to require comparatively few pre- 
established groupings. When to the simple 
instincts of organic life we add the higher 
instincts included in our feelings, and their 
embodiment in our voluntary powers, and 
even in our intelligence, the number is en- 
larged on a scale corresponding with the ac- 
quired aptitudes ; and the new theory is that 
these higher instincts are all hereditary, or 
transmitted acquisitions. 

Our acquisitions taken as a whole repre- 
sent the great mass of our nervous growths. 
I shall attempt to give a rough classification 
of them ; 

1. The simpler and earlier voluntary apti- 
tudes, implied in the voluntary control of 
the various moving members, as the hand. 
We have not originally the power of moving 
any part in a definite way to execute a pur- 
pose ; we have to associate the several move- 
ments with the effects to be produced. With 
the sight of a morsel of food, and the state to 
hunger, we associate the definite movement 
of riie hand to the mouth. MMth the feeling 
of a morsel in the mouth, we have to associate 



MIND AND BODY. 



25 



fJefinite movements of the tongue and the 
jaw. These are groupings of a considerable 
degree of compHcation. A visible image, 
with the knowledge of what the vision sug- 
gests, as, for example, a bit of sugar, and a 
feeling or craving based on a recollection of 
the past — concur as a definite situation ; and 
that situation has to be followed by a grasp- 
ing movement of the hand, and a subsequent 
movement toward the mouth ; to which suc- 
ceeds a series of movements in the mouth it- 
self. The exercise of the voluntary powers 
is a manifold repetition of the same fact — a 
definite situation followed by a definite group 
or series of movements. 

2. The muscular groupings in the various 
experiences of resistance, size, form, and allied 
properties. These are embodied in the hand, 
the arm, and the locomotive organs generally, 
and in the allied nervous centres for motor 
currents. Without the special senses, as 
sight, these notions are very vague, showing 
that the provision for the nervous embodi« 
ment of movements is not great. Still we can 
discriminate degrees of force, by the muscles 
alone ; to every distinguishable degree there 
must be a definite and distinct nervous 
track ; and to every association with each 
special degree, there must correspond 
an appropriate nervous grouping, disen- 
tangled from all other groupings. With every 
distinguishable weight we form some sepa- 
rate associations, some actions to be per- 
formed when that weight is felt, as in sort- 
ing, according to weight, heavy and light 
things. 

The groupings in the muscles of the eye 
that correspond to visible motions and forms 
are exceedingly numerous. These enter into 
imr highest intellectual acquirements of visi- 
ble pictures and arrangements. A circle is a 
series of ocular movements, in definite march 
and grouping ; for this one effect hundreds 
of currents are excited in individual fibres 
and cells. 

The groupings of the larynx, tongue, and 
mouth, for vocal exertions, and above all for 
articulate speech, are on a vast scale. As 
with every simple form visible to the eye, so 
with every separate articulate sound— every 
letter in the alphabet — there is a complex 
series of situations, graduated and organized 
in the corresponding centres, whether pure 
motor, or motor and sensory combined. 

3. Although there is a propriety in view- 
ing the muscular associations as a distinct 
branch of our mental framework, they are, 
lin point of fact, always blended with the 
special senses ; and the delicacy of discrimi- 
nation is far higher in the pure and proper 
senses than in the muscles alone. By the 
pure senses are meant, touch (without strain 
or pressure), taste, smell, hearing, sight (in its 
optical part). To every discriminated sen- 
sation there is (we must believe) a distinct 
and characteristic group of currents, actuat- 
ing a separate group of fibres and cells, and 
.susceptible of being united with any definite 
movement or any other definite sensation. 
Now even in the inferior senses, the grades 



of discrimination are numerous ; in taste and 
smell, probably hundreds ; iu bearing and 
sight, thousands. In the quality of musical 
pitch, a fine ear can discriminate a small 
fraction of a tone ; in a range of seven oc- 
taves a great many separate sensations could 
be held apart without being confounded. If 
to pitch we add intensity, volume, and tim- 
bre, the discriminations would be multiplied 
in proportion. Still, however, the discrimi- 
nations held in the memory are not so numer- 
ous as we might suppose from the delicacy 
of comparing the actual sensations. 

The eye, by its optical function, takes ia 
grades of light and shade, mixtures of white 
and dark in the series of grays, and varieties 
of color. A good eye might have several 
hundreds of distinct optical gradations in 
these various effects. But the eye shows its 
great compass in the plurality of combina- 
tions of points or surfaces of different light, 
making up what are commonly called images : 
compounds of visible form (muscular ) and 
visible groupings (optical). The multitude 
of these that can be distinctly embodied and 
remembered would seem to defy computa- 
tion ; yet every one must have its own track 
in that labyrinth of fibres and corpuscles 
called the brain. 

4. Thus, iu the muscular feelings, and in 
the sensations of the special senses, there are 
all these various grades of distinguishable 
states of feeling, and an enormous number 
of connections between them in our memory 
of things and of events. Yet further. 
Movements may be associated with sensa- 
tions in every one of the senses ; and there 
may be associations between each sense and 
all the others : Touches, with tastes, 
smells, sounds, sights ; tastes, with smells, 
sounds, and sights ; smells, with sounds and 
sights ; and, most of all, sounds with slights. 
What we call our knowledge of a thing is the 

' union of all the sensations produced by it 
into a complex idea of that thing. The idea 
of a shilling is a compound of visible appear- 
ance, sound, and touch. 

5. All these simpler combinations are 
themselves re-compounded into still higher 
combinations. The far-reaching and all- 
embracing acquisition, called language, is 
based on the articulate groupings ; these are 
formed into words, words into phrases and 
sentences ; and all the while there is a pro- 
cess of adhesion between each verbal element 
and some object of sight or other sense. The 
vocal articulation in uttering the word 
" sun," the sound it makes on the ear when 
pronounced, the appearance of the thing — 
are all united, in one higher grouping or 
complex intellectual product. Words are 
thus joined to things ; trains of words are 
joined to trains of events. In learning for- 
eign languages, words as sounds are joined 
to other words as sounds, visible symbols to 
visible symbols ; trains of words iu both ca- 
pacities to other trains. As we can readily 
compute the number of words making up the 
vocabulary of a language, w^e have a mcansl 
of setting forth in a sort of numerical estimate! 



26 



MIND AND BODY 



tlie extent of our acquisitions, and the num- 
ber of iudependeut brain-growths that corre- 
Bpoud to these. 

E^^ery special acquirement is a re-com- 
pounding of the ek;mentary groupings above 
fiketclied. A science, for example, such as 
arilhinetic, is a vast aggregate of new sensi- 
ble groupings ; the elements being our no- 
tions of number gained from numbered 
things, the ten ciphers, and their union in 
the decimal system. There is here a great 
process of economy. Tiie multiplicaLion 
table, which contains 144 propositions, or 
statements of the eijuivalence of numbers, is 
a weapon of indetinile power in computation. 
Still a great deal of independent acquisition 
must succeed these embodiments of the mul- 
tiplication table ; many further rules must be 
learned, with exemplifying instances. To 
work vulgar and decimal fractions demands 
the forming of new and complicated ties. 
Conceive, then, the amount of distinctive 
nervous embotliment in one arithmetical 
fact, as " six timus ten is sixty ;" one hun- 
dred and forty-four such are needed for the 
table ; while the table itself is really a very 
small portion of the growths in the mind of 
a fair arithmetician, even allowing for the 
process, so abundantly exemplified in sci- 
ence, of making the old serve in the new. 
Supposing the trd)le were one fiftieth of the 
memorial embodiment of any one's arithmet- 
ical powers ; the nervous growths would be 
upward of seven thousand for this one sub- 
ject. Five more sciences of like compass 
would give more than forty thousand groups 
ings ; but there would be a very great con- 
densation through unavoidable repetitions. 
Still an accomplished mathematician might 
have upward of twenty or thirty thousand 
groupings of the degree of complicacy typi- 
fied in Ihe table ; there being, however, a 
considerable number of trains equal in length 
to several columns of the table. 

In learning an air of music, suppose the 
" Old Hundredth" psalm tune, there is a 
definite succession of notes. We may view 
the embodiment of such an acquisition in this 
way. The first note suggests nothing ; 
three or four aru needed to determine the air. 
With the sequence of, say, four notes, is as- 
sociated the fifth, and at the same time the 
name and all other adjuncts of the air. A 
complex situation is thereby created, and 
with that the succeeding notes are all asso- 
ciated in train. About thirty notes are thus 
enchained in a fixed order ; each note being 
the associated sequel of a group of notes, or 
other mental effects, of at least three or four 
members. There are thus nearly thirty as- 
sociations of some complicacy in this single 
air. A good musician has hundreds of such 
sequences ; perhaps upward of a thousand, 
but not less than a thousand. Great allow- 
ance must be made for repetitions. A musi- 
cal education would thus comprise as many 
as twenty thousand separate associations of 
small determining groups of notes with other 
notes. 

It is on this analogy that we should have 



to express the verbal memory for consecu- 
tive statements. The determining words of 
a passage — two, three, or four in number — 
will commence the train ; every new word is 
associated with a prior group of words and 
meanings. 

6. In the acquired connections with the 
feelings or emotions, and in those associa- 
tions of will called the " moral habits," we 
might exemplify a distinct and somewhat 
peculiar class of growths. The number is 
still very great ; as is apparent when we re- 
flect upon the great multitude of things con- 
nected in our mind with pleasurable and 
painful feelings. The peculiarity lies in the 
greater impetus or power in every wave that 
involves either feeling or an exercise of will. 
To this impetus must correspond a burst of 
nervous power, and for that burst we seem 
to need a certain mass of nervous substance — 
a large body of corpuscles roused into activ- 
ity. Think of the strain necessary to main- 
tain a struggle of the will against a strong 
present appetite. In such a case as this the 
corpuscles of the brain must not act solely as 
junctions for establishing complicated group- 
ings, but as sources of energy ; and they 
need to be multiplied in that view. Size of 
brain, or multitude of nerve-elements — fibres 
and corpuscles — does not follow intellect 
alone, but varies with the need of motive 
muscular power ; to which we must now 
add energy of emotional manifestations and 
of will or volitional impulses. Accordingly, 
a considerable share of the nervous elements 
has to be assigned to the class of growths 
now mentioned. 

There is a nice question raised, as to 
whether the three functions — intellect, emo- 
tion or feeling, and will, are separately located 
in the brain. The likelihood is that intellec- 
tual combinations and feelings go together ; 
with this difference, that the currents of 
feelings or emotions have a wider diffusion 
and more forcible impetus, and find their 
way to the motor centres at large, evoking 
what is called the expression of feeling. The 
primitive shocks of feeling are at once intel- 
lectual and emotional, but may afterward be 
developed more in the one direction than in 
the other ; yet every intellectual exertion 
has an emotional side, every emotional out- 
burst an intellectual side. 

The association of objects with feelings is 
an immense power in the mind ; it governs 
very largely the pleasurable and painful sus- 
ceptibilities of mature life. According to the 
doctrine of evolution, this class of growths 
becomes hereditary, and accounts for our 
special emotions, as fear, love, and anger. 

Let us put together these and other indi- 
cations of the extent of the human acquisi- 
tions demanding sepa:'ate and independent 
nervous embodiments. Take the case of 
learning languages, where the numerical es- 
timate is approximately attainable. We can 
count the number of words in a language ; 
we can make allowance for the repetttion of 
the same root-word in different compounds. 
The association of a word with a simplje 



MIND AND BODY. 



27 



meaning, as sun, fire, hill, food, presents a 
limited, though still considerable, degree of 
complication. The association of one name 
with another in a foreign tongue is a still 
simpler conjuuclion. 

I may cite as an illustration the Chinese 
language, with its forty thousand characters. 
The strongest memory is incapable of retain- 
ing these : indeed a very unusual stretch of 
memory is requisite to keep hold of the ten 
thousand need for the ordinary literature. 

Agam, consider the situation of a philolo- 
gist knowing six cultivated languages and 
ten uncultivated vocabularies (of several hun- 
dred vocables each). Such an acquirement 
would use up little less than half the attention 
and plasticiiy of one's life. If, then, this 
education were represented by fifty thousand 
cerebral connections, of variable complica- 
tion, but many of them very simple, as word 
to word, we could assign a rough valuation 
to the magnitude of our possible acquisitions; 

The rival department to language, as re- 
gards variety and amount, is the department 
of visual recollections, or pictorial groupings 
and spectacle. Here, too, we reach a limit. 
A datum for calculation might be, how many 
faces could we remember and associate with 
names and other accompaniments ? Not cer- 
tainly more than two or three thousand, So 
with the remembrance of localities, as the 
streets of towns. A life would not suffice for 
laying up in the memory the streets of Lon- 
don. 

Such an object as the human face and 
figure might seem an enormous complication. 
Every feature has its form, size, and coloring ; 
and the comprehension of such an aggregate 
would appear to demand an immense aggre- 
gate of sense impressions, and use up a very 
large area of nervous connections. This 
complication, however, is delusive. The 
memory does not retain a colored photo- 
graph, but only a few salient and deciding 
marks ; perhaps not more than from six to 
ten indications of form, size, and color. 
These are enough for identification, and we 
do not retain any more, except in cases of 
very peculiar intimacy. 
^ A naturalist, with all the aids of classifica- 
tion, cannot retain in his memory the marks 
of more than perhaps two or three thousand 
species ; for the rest he must be content to re- 
fer 10 his books. Yet he, too, must have de- 
voted the larger half of the plastic energy of 
his brain to his special studies. 

The conclusion is that the cerebral growths 
of a certain typical complication cannot be 
adequately stated in hundreds ; they amount 
to thousands, and even tens of thousands ; 
they scarcely count by hundreds of thou- 
sands. 

Let us make a rough estimate of the ner- 
vous elements — fibres and corpuscles — with 
a view to compare the number of these with 
the number of our acquisitions. 

The thin cake of gray substance surround- 
ing the hemispheres of the biain, and ex- 
tended into many doublings by the furrowed 
or convoluted structure, is somewhat diffi- 



cult to measure. It has been estimated at up- 
ward of 300 square inches, or as nearly equal 
to a square surface of 18 inches in the side. 
Its thickness is variable, but, on an average, 
it may he stated at one tenth of an inch. It 
is the largest accumulation of gray matter in 
the bod}^ It is made up of several layers of 
gray substance divided by layers of white 
substance. The gray substance is a neariy 
compact mass of corpuscles, of variable size. 
The large caudate nerve-cells are mingled 
with very small corpuscles, less than the 
thousandth of an inch in diameter. Allowing 
for intervals, we may suppose that a linear 
row of five hundred cells occupies an inch ; 
thus giving a quarter of a million to the 
square inch, for 300 inches. If one half of 
the thickness of the la3"er is made up of 
fibres, the corpuscles or cells, taken by 
themselves, would be a mass one twentieth 
of an inch thick, say sixteen cells in the 
depth. Multiplying these numbers together, 
we should reach a total of twelve hundred 
millions of cells in the gray covering of the 
hemispheres. As every cell is united with 
at least two fibres, often many more, we may 
multiply this number by four, for the num- 
ber of connecting fibres attached to the mass, 
which gives fuur thousand eight hundred 
millions of fibres. Assume the respective 
numbers to be (corpuscles) one thousand, and 
(fibres) five thousand, millions, and make the 
comparison with our acquisitions as fol- 
lows : 

With a total of 50,000 acquisitions, evenly 
spread over the whole of the hemispheres, 
there would be for each nervous grouping at 
the rate of 20,000 cells and 100,000 fibres. 

With a total of 200,000 acquisitions of the 
assumed types, which would certainly in- 
clude the most retentive and most richly-en- 
dowed minds, there would be for each ner- 
vous grouping 5000 cells and 25,000 fibres. 

This leaves out of account a very consider- 
able mass of nervous matter in the spinal 
cord, medulla oblongata, cerebellum, and 
the lesser gray centres of the brain ; in all of 
which there are very large deposits of gray 
matter, with communicating white fibres 
to match. 

Such an estimate, confined to the hemi- 
spheres of the brain, is enough for its pur- 
pose, which is to show that numerous as are 
the embodiments to be provided for, the 
nervous elements are on a corresponding 
scale, and that there is no improbability in 
supposing an independent nervous track for 
each separate acquisition. 

It is not at all likely, however, that the en- 
tire brain can be partitioned equally among 
the various subjects to be remembered or ac- 
quired. Besides the fact that a great part of 
the brain substance exists for mere battery 
power — to propel muscles, and to keep up 
energetic volitions and manifestations of feel- 
ing — there seems often to be a duplication of 
the same embodiment in different parts. The 
two hemispheres apparently repeat one 
another ; when one is injured, the other 
keeps up the trains of memory, although 



MIND AND BODY. 



V. ;,li weakened energies. It is even supposed 
1h.it in the same hemispliere tiiere my be dii- 
p"ic;tles ; since injuries in the forepart of the 
Ileal have occurred without dcstroyiftg any 
sinijlc class of acquisitions. Moreover, it is 
most unlikely that a perfect economy of the 
cells and ribrcs can be realized, however well 
distiii)uted the acquisitions may be. Could 
we btiniz; all the elements into full play, there 
mii^ht possibly be room for many times our 
present average store of recollections. 

We may go one step farther, and inquire 
liow the various groupings may arise, and 
how thf^y can be isolated so as to preserve 
the requisite distinctness in our trains of 
tlionght. Let me first call attention to the 
dilficullies of the case. 

If each set of sensory fibres had one defi- 
nite connection with motory or outcarrying 
fibres, we should have always the same move- 
ment answering to the stimulation of the 
same nerves, as in the reflex system ; the 
fibre a could do nothing but effect the move- 
ment X. It is necessary to the variety and 
iexibility of our acquirements that the fibre 
Kju slioulil at one lime take part in stimulat- 
ing X, and at another time take part in stim- 
ulaliiig^, the circumstances being different. 
The stroke of the clock will stimulate us at 
one lime to set out in one direction, and at 
another time in another direction, according 
to the ideas that it co-operates with. Then, 
again, the degree of the stimulation of the 
same fiores will determine, not merely a 
greater energy of the same response, as 
would happen in reflex stimulation, but a to- 
tally different response : a, weak, determines 
movement a?; a, Htrong, determines?/ The 
steersman oC a ship making for port is guided 
by the intensity of the beacon light. 

These illustrations show the two chief con- 
ditions whereby the same nerve is instrumen- 
tal in causing distinct movements, namely, 

1st. Its being differently grouped. 

2d. Its being unequally stimulated. 

We shall begin with the case of difference 
of grouping. "The fibre <x stimulated along 
-with h gives x ; so a c gives y, and be gives 2. 

Let us try and imagine how the structure 
is adapted to this state of things. It requires 
us to assume, not merely fibres multiplying 
by ramification through the cell junctions, 
but also an extensive arrangement of cross 
connections. "We can typify it in this way. 
Suppose a enters a cell junction, and is re- 
placed by several branches, a\ a\ etc. ; b, in 
like manner, is multiplied into h\ b', etc. 
Let one of the branchrs of a, or a\ pass into 
some second cell, and a branch of b, or b\ 
pass into the s\me, and let one of the emerg- 
ing branches be X, we have then a means 
for connecting united a and b with X; and, 
in some other crossing, a branch of a may 
unite with a branch of c, from which cross- 
jng y emerges, and so on. In every case of 
uuitf'd stimulation producing a definite 
nir)v»;m'.'nt. we must suppose a set of cells 
•where ramifications of the stimulated nerves 
unite themselves, and find an outlet of cora- 
jnuuicalion with that special movement. 



The diagram shows the arrangement. Tho 
fibre a branches into two a', a^ ; the fibre 6, 
into 6', y ; c, into c', c . One ot the branches 
of a unites with one of the branches of b, or 
a'¥ in a cell X ; ¥ c' unite in Y ; a' c" in Z. 
These cells X, Y, Z, are supposed to be the 
commencement of motor fibres, each com" 
municating with a separate muscular group, 
and rousing a distinctive movement. By this 
plan we comply with the primary condition 
of assigning a separate outcome to every 
different combination of sensory impressions. 




Fio. 2. 

We may compare this diagram with the 
following, given by Dr. Lionel Beale, to 
show the manner of junction of nerve-fibres 
with caudate nerve-cells. The crossing of 
fibres from one cell to collateral cells is ex- 
actly what is supposed in the foregoing rep- 
resentation. Dr. Beale is not advocating any 
theory of the physical basis of our intellect- 
ual acquisitions ; his object is to represent 
the connections of fibres and corpuscles as 
actually exhibited. The conformity of his 
diagram with the scheme of cross connections 
required by the foregoing hypothetical 
scheme, is very striking. But, indeed, with- 
out a most extensive system of these lateral 
communications, we should be wholly un- 
able to imagine the embodiment of our dis- 
tinctive mental impressions. 

We have taken the simplest case possible 
— binary groupings of three elements, a, b, c. 
The diagram shews that for these we need 
three primary fibres, six branching fibres, 
and six cells. Our acquisitions involve far 
more complex groupings. To give a distinc- 
tive character to the most ordinary impres- 
sion on the eye, or the ear, there is com- 
monly a union of four, five, six, seven, or 
more, separate impressions, as in the letters 
of a word, the characters of a piece of furni- 
ture, the marks of an individual person ; and 
each ©f these elementary or constituent im- 
pressions — a letter of the alphabet, a round 
or square form— is already a complex com- 
pound. Hence the number of fibres and 
Cf lis brought into action, before the group- 
ing can converge upon some one set of cells 
definitely connected with an out-going mo- 
tor arrangement, or with some other internal 
grouping— must be very great indeed ; and 
but for the vast number of fibres and cells, 
demonstrably present in the brain, the sepa- 



3IIND AKD BOD^v 



2^ 




Fia. 3. 

rate embodiment of every separate impres- 
sion and idea would seem impracticable. 

Next B.5 to unequal intensities of stimulation 
of the same nerves : a, weak, is connected 
with X; a, stronger, with T; a, still 
stronger, with Z. When you taste a cup of 
tea, you give utterance to the word " weak" 
under one pitch of sensation ; at another 
pitch, the same nerves being affected, you give 
forth the word "good." On a fine ear the 
same fibies may discriminate many shades of 
intensity, and may for every one be associ- 
ated differently with vocal exertions. Now, 
a more energetic current necessarily takes a 
more extended sweep , and affects a number of 
cells and fibres that are left quiescent under 
a feebler current. The cells being viewed as 
crossings — where a current in one circuit in- 
duces a current in an adjoining circuit — there 
is, at each crossing, a certain resistance to 
overcome, and the feebler current is sooner 
exhausted and stops short of the distance 
reached by stronger. It is like a larger wave 
on lh« sea-shore, whose superior bulk and 
impetus are made most conspicuous by out- 
stripping all the rest as it rushes up the 
sands. We may figure the action thus : 

A certain intensity makes an effective in- 
duction (in tne electrical sense of the word 
*' induction"), suppose once ; the currents so 
generated do not produce a second induction 
of the same power. A weak current in a 
certain line of fibres produces, we shall say, 
a hundred secondary currents, which amount 
of diffusion gives to it its character in the 
consciousness, and its local habitation where 
it meets outgoing motor currents. But a 
stronger impetus will determine all these hun- 
dred secondary currents, and a hundred 
teriiary^ besides, which will make the charac- 
ter of its diffusion ; and the points where a 
number of the secondary concur with a 
number of the tertiary will be the points 
where a definite motor current may be asso- 
ciated with it. So that what begins as mere 
difference of intensity in one track ends in 
difference of grouping, or in characteristic 
points of meeting, whence a definite motor 
current may lake its rise, and be distinctively 
united. 

Having thus considered how to provide, for 
every new mental connection demanded for 
our progressive acquirements, a special ner- 
vous track devoted to that connection, the 
remaining point is to consider by what means 



the connections are permanently fixed in the 
several tracks. This is to assign the physical 
bond underlying memory, recollection, or 
the retentive power of the mind. 

We know what are the conditions of mak- 
ing an acquirement, or of fixing two or more 
things together in tne memory. The sepa- 
rate impressions must be made together, or 
flow in close succession ; and they must be 
held together for a certain length of time, 
either on one occasion, or on repeated occa- 
sions. Now to each impression, each sensa- 
tion or thought, there corresponds physically 
a group or series of nerve-currents ; when 
two impressions concur, or closely succeed 
one another, the nerve-currents find some 
bridge or place of continuity, better or worse, 
aecording to the abundance of nerve-matter 
available for the transition. In the cells or 
corpuscles where the currents meet and join, 
there is, in consequence of the meeting, a 
strengthened connection or diminislied obstruc- 
tion — a preference track for that line over 
other lines where no continuity has been es- 
tablished. 

This is merely a hypothetical rendering of 
the facts : yet it is a very probable rendering. 
In the nature and number of the nerve ele- 
ments, and their mode of connection, there 
is notiiing hypothetical ; and there is no de- 
parture from fact or strong probability, in 
assigning special and distinct tracks for the 
currents connected with each separate sensa- 
tion, idea, emotion, or other conscious state. 
As to the precise mode of the plastic growth, 
that unites separate impressions into trains 
and aggregates in the memory — we know 
that the corpuscles or crossings are the points 
that must be operated upon ; that a flow of 
healthy blood must co-operate to the effect ; 
and that the process takes time. It is evi- 
dently a species of growth : but the precise 
molecular change effected in the lines of 
strengthened communication, or diminished 
obstruction, we can describe only as increas- 
ing the conducting tendency in those lines, 
as compared with the collateral openings 
where no such operation has taken place.* 

* In thus endeavoring to sketch the embodiment of 
our intellectual functions in the cerebral system, i 
have been very much aided by tbe views and the dia- 
grams of Dr. Lionel Beale. Almost every one of the 
views peculiar to him assist the foregoing specula- 
tion. 

1. As regards the connection of the nerve-cells, Dr. 
Beale maintains that all true nerve-cells are continu- 
ous with nerve-fibrt'8, and have at least two t^uch con- 
nections. The so-called upolar cell's,— ivdvin-r no visible 
communications with fibres— are without meaning ou 
any hypothesis of nervous action hitherto eu-gested. 
Moreover, while it is admitted that there may be a» 
few as two nerve connections, a large proportion of 
cells mu-'t have more tlian two, otherwise nerve-librea 
would have to rise in the brain as loose ends. 

2. With respect to the minuteness, and consequent- 
ly the number, of the ultimate nerve-fibres, Dr. Beale 
supposes that the so-called ultimate flore (the dark- 
bordered fibre, varying from l-3()00th to l-15000tn of 
an inch) may be in reality a bundle, and that the true 
ultimate fibres are represented by the terminal rami- 
fying fibres of l-100,000th of an inch, or less. Now 
upon the su|)positi()n of a distinct nervous uuck, or 
series of connections, for each distinct aequirenun', 
the number of the fibres must correspond to the n;:m- 
ber of acquirements; and the greati.T the nu.mur 
actually proved to exist, the more creaiule lo tuc 



^ 



MIND AND BODY. 



CHAPTER VI. 

HOW ARE MIKD AND BODY UNITED? 

A VAST (leal of speculatiou has been ex- 
peiuied as to the manner of union of mind 
and body. The majority of persons are dis- 
posed to treat tlie question as insoluble, as 
ansuitcd to our faculties, as what is termed 
a " mystery." 

This word "mystery" isitself ^reatlymis- 
conceived. Such was the opinion of one of 
the ablest of bihlical critics— Principal George 
Campbell — as to the employment of the word 
in religious doctrine. In Campbell's view 
'' fivarrjpiov" meixns simply what we call a 
secret— a thing for the time concealed, but 
afterward to be made known. It is the cor- 
relative term to "revelation," which dis- 
closed what had previously been hidden. 

In another acceptation, mystery is cor- 
related to explanation. ; it means something 
intelligible enough as a fact, but not account- 
ed for, not reduced to any law, principle, or 
reason. The ebb and flow of the tides, the 
motion of the planets, satellites, and comets, 
were understood as facts at all times; but 
they were regarded as mysteries until New- 
ton brought them under the laws of motion 
and of gravity. Earthquakes and volcanoes 
are still mysterious ; their explanation is not 
yet fully made out. The immediate deriva- 
tion of muscular power and of animal heat is 
unknown, which renders these phenomena 
my.steiious. 

The meaning of the correlative couple — 
mystery, explanation — has been rendered 
precise by the march of physical science 
5iuce the age of Newton. Mystery is the 
isolation of a fact from all others. Explana- 
tion is the discerning of agreement among 

hypothesis of separate embodiment. 

3. The manner of connection of the nerve-fibres 
with the cell, and with one another through the ceil, 
is coiiji;ctured and figured by Dr. Beale in a plan that 
facilitates our conception of the physical growths 
underlying memory and acquisition. (I refer particu- 
larly to his paper in the Proceedings of the Royal 
Society, vol.xiii.,p. 38(5, on the Paths of Nerve-cur- 
rents in Nerve-cells.) He observed, in certain speci- 
mens of the caudate nerve-cells, a series of lines 
passing a TOSS the body of the cell, and continuing 
into its branches, or communicating with the nei-yes. 
He considers these lines as the tracks of nervous 
action through the cell, being probably somewhat 
ditlerent insuHstance from the rest of the matter of 
the cell. Hecouples with this appearance the doctrine 
(maintained by him, althounjh disputed by others) 
that the nerves terminate in loops, and consequently 
form an unbroken nervous circuit. He then suggests 
that the cell-crossing is the place where the inner 
bendings of a great many independent circuits come 
into close neighborhood, and allect one another by a 
process of th(! nature of electrical induction. Anyone 
•of the circuits being active, or excitrd, would impart 
exc.temeiit to all that came near it in the same cell. 
(See Fig 3 of the paper referred to.) 

Now assuming nuch an arrangem>-nt. 1 can suppose 
that, at first, each one of tl^e circuits would affect afl 
the others indiscriminately ; but that, in consequence 
<!»■ two or them being independently made active at 
the same moment (which is the fact in acquisition), 
Ji strengthened connection or diminished obstruction 
v.o:i!d arise between these two, by a change wrought 
ill the intervening cell-substance ; and that, afterward, 
f"- ir.duc.iion from one of these circuits would not be 
in.lisrriiiiinate, but select : being comparatively strong 
towunl one, and weaker toward the rest. 



facts remotely placed : it is essentially the 
generalizing process, whereby many widely 
scattered appearances are shown to come un- 
der one commanding principle or law^ The 
fall of a stone, the flow of rivers, the reten- 
tion of the moon in her circuit, are all ex- 
pressed by the single law of gravity. ^ This 
generalizing sweep is a real advance in our 
knowledge, an ascent in the scale of intelli- 
gence, a step toward the centralization of the 
empire of science ; and it is the only real 
meaning of explanation. A difllculty is 
solved, a mystery is unriddled, according as 
the mysterious facts can be shown to resem- 
ble other facts. Mystery is solitariness, ex- 
ception, or it may be apparent contradiction ; 
the resolution of the mystery is found in as- 
similation, identity, fraternity. When all 
natural operations are assimilated, as far as 
assimilation can go, as far as likeness holds, 
there is an end to explanation, and to the 
necessity for it ; there is an end to what the 
mind can intelligently desire ; perfect vision 
is consummated. 

But, say many persons, after resolving the 
fall of a stone and the sun's attraction into 
one force called gravity, there still remains 
the mystery— what is gravity? Even New- 
ton sought to explain gravity itself. Well, 
if you must go farther, find some other force 
to assimilate with gravity ; you will then 
make a new generalizing stride, «ind achieve 
a further step of explanation. If, however, 
there is no other force to be assimilated, grav- 
ity is the final term of explanation, the full 
revelation of the mystery. There is nothing 
further to be done, nothing further to be 
desired. Nor have we here any reason to be 
dissatisfied wi(;h this position, to complain of 
balked satisfaction, or of being on a lower 
platform than we might possibly occupy. 
Our intelligence is fully honored, full imple- 
mented, by the possession of a principle as 
wide in its sweep as the phenomenon itself. 

Apply all this to the union of mind and 
body. These two phenomena have very little 
in common ; they participate ohlyinthe most 
general attributes, namely, quantity, co-ex- 
istence, and succession, and even as regards 
these their participation is limited. 

As to quantity, degree, or distinction of more 
and less, there is no exemption on the part of 
either. The properties of every material 
body are distinguished as more or less ; mag- 
nitude, weight, color, hardness, etc., have 
assignable degrees or amounts specific to 
each substance. So also are the mental prop- 
erties distinguished as more or less ; our 
pleasures, our pains, our thoughts, may be 
numbered and measured, although the grades 
of intensity of the feelings cannot be assigned 
with the same minute precision that belongs 
to the leading material properties, such as 
size, weight, or tenacity. Again, material 
properties co-exist; a plurality may ooncur 
in the same object ; a diamond has size, 
form, transparency, and other qualities all 
co-inhering in the same unity. So mental 
attributes co-inhere, are attached to a com- 
mon subject ; the same mind feels, wills, and 



MIND AND BODY. 



31 



thiuks. Lastly, material phenomena are in a 
state of change or mutation ; they show suc- 
cessive phases ; and in their succesHon we 
recognize the peculiar and remarkable bond 
termed causation, or cause and effect. A 
spnrk falls into water, it is extinguished ; it 
falls on gunpowder, there is an explosion. 
The same fluctuation, mutation, succession, 
and causation, maybe traced in the workings 
of mind ; a pain suddenly ceasing is followed 
by a reaction of pleasure. 

The one feature usually signalized as pres- 
ent in all material phenomena, and absent 
from all states of the conscious mind, is that 
mode of co-existence called order in place, 
EXTENSION. A building or a tree is named 
as an extended thing ; a pleasure, a pain, a 
recollection, is not felt to be extended ; there 
is an incompatibility between a feeling and a 
perception of extended magnitude. While 
we are mentally occupied or engrossed with 
a genial warmth, we are not able to entertain 
the perception of a room, or a fire, as occu- 
pying space. 

Bodily facts and mental facts are in them- 
selves equally conceivable, equally intelligi- 
ble. When we see a table we perceive it in 
the way suited to our faculties ; there is no 
reservation or mystery attached to it as a 
table. W^en we feel a waim surface, we 
have a sufficient notion of what warmth is. 
There is a marked difference of nature be- 
tween these two feelings ; they differ much 
more than a table differs from a house, or 
the taste of sugar from the sound of an 
iEolian harn. Yet difference does not inter- 
fere with knowledge, but on the contrary 
adds to it ; every new difference is the revela- 
tion of a new quality. 

I repeat, what a piece of matter is, what 
an operation of mind is, we know equallj-- 
well ; we see that they both agree and differ 
from other kinds of matter, and from other 
operations of mind. There is a much closer 
kindred between material facts among them- 
selves, and between mental facts among 
themselves, than betw^een material facts 
generally and mental facts generally. Hence, 
we resolve all the facts of nature ultimately 
into two kinds— matter and mind ; and we 
do not resolve these into anything higher. 
We come upon a wider contrast at this point 
than we had in any prior stage of our gen- 
eralizing movement. The plants and the 
animals differ widely in their details ; both 
differ still more widely from inanimate mat- 
ter. Yet they agree in all the principal 
features of material bodies ; and are in total 
opposition to mind, which has neither the 
distinctive features of either, nor the com- 
mon attributes of both. The inanimate and 
the animate are not so aifferent as body and 
mind. 

Extension is but the first of a long series 
of properties all present in matter, all absent 
in mind. Inertia cannot belong to a pleas- 
ure, a pain, an idea, as experienced in the 
<; )D.sciousness ; it can belong only to the 
pfiysical accompaniments of mind— the overt 
acts of vohtion, and the manifestations of 



feeling. Inertia is accompanied with grav- 
ity, a peculiarly material property. 80 
COLOR is a truly materia, property ; it cannot 
attach to a feeling, properly so called, a pleas- 
ure or a pain. These three properties are the 
basis of matter ; to them are superadded 
FORM, MOTION, POSITION, and a host of other 
properties expressed in terms of these — at- 
tractions and repulsions, hardness, elasticity, 
cohesion, crj^stallization, heat, light, electric- 
ity, chemical properties, organized properties 
(in special kinds of matter). 

When we have laid out in full array the 
properties peculiar to matter, and the proper- 
ties peculiar to mind, we present two distinct 
departments of study, having each its diffi- 
culties to be overcome. Matter in many of 
its properties is simple, intelligible, devoid 
of all mystery, the very type of plainness ; 
such are extension, inertia, gravity. It has 
other properties less known, but yet not al- 
together unintelligible, as heat, light, elec- 
tricity, chemical attraction. A third class 
are still less understood, and verge on the 
mysterious, as the vital properties. We do 
not fully understand how the nutritive pro- 
cesses yield muscular motion ; we cannot 
assimilate the fact with any other known 
facts, or bring it under any known law. 

Mind, in some of its phenomena, is plain 
enough. We distinguish pleasures and pains, 
we know many of the laws of their rise, sub- 
sidence, and mutual action. We know as a 
fact that our thoughts follow in trains, and 
we can resolve many of the successions into 
general laws of succession ; which is, up to 
a certain point, to explain the phenomena. 
We are less acquainted with the laws govern- 
ing the successions in dreaming ; these suc- 
cessions are by comparison mysterious to us. 

There ar-e thus two knowledges, each ad- 
vancing on its own way, and gradually ex- 
tending the region of the plain and intelligi- 
ble at the expense of the obscure, the isolated, 
and the unintelligible. So far, there is noth- 
ing that any one can complain of, excepting 
the slowness of our progress. But now we 
have to take account of a new fact, namely, 
that these two classes of properties are con- 
joined in the unity of a sentient being — man 
or animal. The same being that exhibits the 
mental powers is a lump of matter, charac- 
terized by a great number of the most subtle 
endowments of matter. A sentient animal 
has two endowments, two sides or aspects of 
its being— the one all matter, the other all 
mind. Notwithstanding the cardinal oppo- 
sition of the two sets of powers, they are in- 
separably joined in the same being ; they co- 
inhere in the one individual, man or animal. 
Tliis may seem curious or wonderful, but 
there is nothing in it to take umbrage at. If 
mind exists, it must exist somewhere and 
somehow ; for anything we know, it might 
have existed apart, in a way that we cannot 
figure to ourselves for want of some example 
within our reach. In actual fact, it exists in 
company with a peculiar mass of matter, con- 
taining in a very superior degree the proper- 
ties known as living or organized. Mind is 



S2 



MIND AND BODY. 



not associated with mineral or inanimate 
matter. Does this conjunction interfere wilii 
our study of the two separate departments — 
mind and body — each according to its kind ? 
Apparently not. It cannot interfere with 
our observation of all those material proper- 
ties in minerals and vegetables that exist 
without an alliance with mental powers. It 
need not interfere with the study even of the 
highly organized functions of animals, un, 
less these are somehow or other controlled 
by mental operations, which can be known 
only l)y actunl examination. 

We miifht thus, to all appearance, proceed 
in our separate tracts of material and of men- 
tal investigation, in spite of the incorporation 
of the mental with the material in certain liv- 
ing subjects ? But now, are we to take any 
notice of the fact of the union itself? Are 
we to enunciate as a property of matter, that 
a certain highly complicated material mass 
can be associated with mind ; and as a prop- 
erty of miud, that it is found in alliance with 
a material body ? Surely, if such be the 
fact, we are at liberty to declare it. May 
we then call it a mystery ? In a certain 
sense we may. It is a fact isolated and 
unique, if we look at matter generally ; but 
it is yet of wide prevalence, if we combine the 
number of individuals of the human race with 
the still greater numbers of the lower animals. 
The repetition of it over so wide a field re- 
deems the mystery by familiarity ; although 
it does not take away the bold contrast be- 
tween the animal nature on the one hand 
and plants and minerals on the other. 

The mystery will be still further reduced if 
we can resolve the connection as stated in 
gross, to separate and specific laws of con- 
nection. This would be a step of genuine 
enlightenment in any region of nature. We 
accept the union as a fact, just as we accept 
any other union — heat with light, magnetism 
with the sesquloxideof iron, gravity with in- 
ert matter. We then endeavor to express it 
in its simplest terms, or under the most com- 
prehensive laws. Let us resolve into the 
highest possible generalities, the connection 
of pleasures and pains with all the physical 
stimulants of the senses, wiih all the sugges- 
tions of thought, with all the external mani- 
festations in feature, gesture, movement, and 
secretion ; and when this is done we shall 
have resolved one part of the mystery by the 
only mode of resolution that the case admits 
of. Let us go farther if we can : let us gen- 
eralize the connections of thought or intel- 
lect with nervous and other processes ; find 
out what physical basis specifically belongs 
to memory, to reason, to imagination, and 
wiiat are the most general statements of the 
relationship: we shall then fully, suflBciently, 
finally explain the alliance of mind and body 
in the spliere of intellect. There is no other 
explanation needful, no other competent, no 
other that would be explanation. Instead 
of our being unfortunate, as is sometimes 
said, in not being able to know the essence 
of cither mind or matter, in not rendering an 
account of their union, ourmisfortuue would 



be to have to know anything different from; 
what we do or may know. There is surely 
nothing to complain of in the circumstance 
that the elements of our experience are, in 
the last resort, not one but two. If theie 
were fifty ultimate experiences, none of them 
having a single property in common with auy 
other ; and if we had only our present limited 
powers of understanding, we might be en- 
titled to complain of the world's mj'sterious- 
ness, in the one proper acceptation of mys- 
tery, namely, as overpowering our means of 
intellectual comprehension, as weighing us- 
down with a load of unassimilable facts. 
But our actual difiiculty is far short of this ;. 
the institution -of two distinct entities is not 
in itself a crushing dispensation. 

It remains to consider the expression most 
suited to this union of the two distinct and 
mutually irresolvable natures. By inapplica- 
ble phraseology many a question has been 
darkened and mystified to the point of de- 
spair. In the History of Philosophy we find 
numerous instances of contradictions brought 
about by inappropriate language ; most of 
all in this very case of mind and bodj', as- 
will appear in the closing chapter, on the his- 
tory of the question. 

The doctrine of two substances — a material 
united with an immaterial in a certain 
vaguely defined relationship — which has pre- 
vailed from the time of Thomas Aquinas ta 
the present day, is now in course of being 
modified, at the instance of modern physiol- 
ogy. The dependence of purely intellectmtJ 
operations, as memory, upon the material 
processes, has been reluctantly admitted by 
the partisans of an immaterial principle ; an 
admission incompatible with the isolation of 
the intellect in Aristotle and in Aquinas. 
This more thoroughgoing connection of the 
mental and the physical has led to a new 
form of expressing the relationship, which is 
nearer the truth, without being, in my judg- 
ment, quite accurate. It is now often said 
that the mind and the body act upon each 
other ; that neither is allowed, so to speak, 
to pursue its course alone ; there is a con- 
stant interference, a mutual influence be- 
tween the two. This view is liable to the 
following objections : 

In the first place, it assumes that we are 
entitled to speak of mind apart from body, 
and to afiirm its powers and properties m 
that separate capacity. But of mind apart 
from body we have no direct experience, and 
absolutely no knowledge. The wind may 
act upon the sea, and the waves may react 
upon the wind ; yet the agents are known in 
separation, they are seen to exist apart before 
the shock of collision ; but we are not aU 
lowed to perceive a mind acting apart from 
its material companion. 

In the second place, we have every reason 
for believing that there is, in company witli 
all our mental processes, an unbroken mate- 
Hal succession. From the ingress of a sensa- 
tion to the outgoing responses in action, the 
mental succession is not for an instant dis- 
severed from a physical succession. A new 



MIND A.ND BODY. 



prospect bursts upon the view ; there is a 
mental result of sensation, emotion, thought 
— terminating in outward displays of Mpeech 
or gesture. Parallel to this mental series is 
the physical series of facts, the successive 
agitation of the physical organs, called the 
eye, the retina, the optic nerve, optic centres, 
cerebral hemispheres, outgoing nerves, 
muscles, etc. While we go the round of the 
mental circle of sensation, emotion, and 
thought, there is an unbroken physical circle 
of effects. It would be incompatible with 
everything we know of the cerebral action, 
to suppose that the physical chain ends ab- 
ruptly in a physical void, occupied by an 
immateiial substance ; which immaterial sub- 
stance, after working alone, imparts its re- 
sults to the other edge of the physical break, 
and determines the active response — two 
shores of the material with an intervening 
ocean of the immaterial. There is, in fact, 
no rupture of nervous continuity. The only 
tenable supposition is, that mental and physi- 
cal proceed together, as undivided twins. 
When, therefore, we speak of a mental cause, 
a mental agency, we have always a two-sided 
cause ; the effect produced is not the effect 
of mind alone, but of mind in company with 
bod3^ That mind should have operated on 
the body, is as much as to say that a two-sided 
phenomenon, one side being bodily, can in- 
fluence the body ; it is, after all, body acting 
upon body. When a shock of fear paralyzes 
digestion, it is not the emotion of fear, in the 
abstract, or as a pure mental existence, that 
does the harm ; it is the emotion in company 
with a peculiarly excited condition of the 
brain and nervous system ; and it is this con- 
dition of the brain that deranges the stomach. 
When physical nourishment, or a physical 
stimulant, acting through the blood, quiets 
the mental irritation, and restores a cheerful 
tone, it is not a bodily fact causing a mental 
fact by a direct line of causation : the nour- 
ishment and the stimulus determine the cir- 
culation of blood to the brain, give a new di- 
rection to the nerve currents ; and the men- 
tal condition corresponding to this particular 
mode of cerebral action henceforth manifests 
itself. The line of menial sequence is thus, 
not mind causing body, and body causing 
mind, but mind-body giving birth to mind- 
body ; a much more intelligible position. 
For this double or conjoint causation we can 
produce evidence ; for the single-handed 
causation we have no evidence. 

The same line of criticism applies to an- 
other phrase in common use, namely, "the 
mind uses the body as its instrument," or 
medium of operating on the external world. 
This also assumes for mind a separate exist- 
ence, a power of living apart, an option of 
working with or without a body. Actuated 
by the desire of making itself known, and of 
playing a part in the sphere of matter, the 
mind uses its bodily ally to gratify this de- 
sire ; but if it chose to be self-contained, to 
live satisfied with its own contemplations, 
like the gods as conceived by Aristotle, it 
need not enter ipto co-operation with any 



physical process, with brain, senses, or mus- 
cular organs. I will not reiterate the ground- 
lessness of this supposition. The physical 
alliance is the very law of our mental being ; 
it is not contrived purely for the purpose of 
making our mental states known : without it 
we should not have mental states at all. The{ 
imparling our feelings to others, and the set- 
ting outward things in motion, are conse- 
quences of the alliance, but they are not its 
primary motive. The resolve on our part to 
affect other minds is already a physical fact, 
in company with a mental fact ; it is not a 
whit more physical when carried into overt 
display. 

If all mental facts are at the same time 
physical facts, some will ask what is the 
meaning of a proper mental fact ? Is there 
any difference at all between mental agents 
and physical agents ? There is a very broad 
difference, which may be easily illustrated. 
When any one is pleased, stimulated, cheered 
by food, wine, or bracing air, we call the in^ 
flueuce physical ; it operates on the viscera, 
and through these upon the nerves, by a 
chain of sequence purely physical. When 
one is cheered by good news, by a pleasing 
spectacle, or by a stroke of success, the influ- 
ence is mental ; sensation, thought, and con- 
sciousness are part of the chain ; although, 
these cannot be sustained without their 
physical basis. The proper physical fact is 
a single, one-sided, objective fact ; the men- 
tal fact is a two-sided fact — one of its sides 
being a train of feelings, thoughts, or other 
subjective elements. We do not fully repre- 
sent the mental fact, unless we take account 
of both the sides. The so-called mental in- 
fluences — cheerful news, a fine poem, and 
the rest— cannot operate, except on a frame 
physically prepared to respond to the stimu- 
lation. 

While admitting that there is something 
unique, if not remarkable, in the close incor- 
poration of the two extreme and contrasted 
facts, termed mind and matter, we must 
grant that the total difference of nature has 
rendered the union very puzzling to express 
in language. The history of the question re- 
peatedly exemplifies this difficulty. 

What I have in view is this. When I 
speak of mind as allied with body — with a 
brain and its nerve-currents — I can scarcely 
avoid localizing the mind, giving it a local 
habitation. I am thereupon asked to explain 
what always puzzled the schoolmen, namely, 
whether the mind is all in every part, or only 
all in the whole ; whether in tapping any 
point I may come at consciousness, or 
whether the whole mechanism is wanted for 
the smallest portion of consciousness. Ona 
might perhaps turn the question by the anal- 
ogy of the telegraph wire, or the electric cir- 
cuit, and say that a complete circle of action 
is necessary to any menial manifestation ; 
which is probably irue. But this does net 
meet the case. The fact is, that all the tima 
that we are speaking of nerves and wires, wo 
are not speaking of mind, properly so called, 
at all ; we are ;^)ulting forward physical facta 



MIND AND BODY. 



lliat go along with it, but these physical facts 
are not the mental fact, and they even pre- 
clude us from thinking of the mental fact. 
We are in tiiis tix : mental states and bodily 
states are utterly contrasted ; they cannot be 
compared, they have nothing in common ex- 
cept the most general of all attributes — de- 
gtee, and order in time ; when engaged with 
one we must be oblivious of all that distin- 
guishes the other. When I am studying a 
brain and nerve communications, I am en- 
giossed with properties exclusively belonging 
to the object or material world ; I am unable 
at that moment (except by very rapid transi- 
tions or alternations) to conceive a truly 
mental fact, my truly mental consciousness. 
Our mental experience, our feelings and 
thougiits, have no extension, no place, no 
former outline, no mechanical division of 
parts ; and we are incapable of attending to 
anjahiug mental until we shut off the view 
of all that. Walking in the country in 
spring, our mind is occupied with the foliage, 
the bloom, and the grassy meads — all purely 
objective things : we are suddenly and 
strongly arrested by the odor of the May- 
blossom ; we give way for a moment to the 
sensation of sweetness ; for that moment the 
objective regards cease ; we think of noth- 
ing extended ; we are in a state where ex- 
tension has no footing ; there is, to us, place 
no longer. - Such states are of short duration, 
mere fits, glimpses ; they are constantly 
shifted and alternated with object states, 
but while they last and have their full power 
we are in a different world ; the material 
world is blotted out, eclipsed, for the instant 
unthinkable. These subject - moments are 
studied to advantage in bursts of intense 
pleasure, or intense pain, in fits of engrossed 
reflection, especially reflection upon mental 
facts ; but they are seldom sustained in 
purity beyond a very short interval ; we are 
constantly returning to the object side of 
things— to the world whose basis is extension 
ami place. 

This, then, as it appears to me, is the only 
realdiflacully of the physical and mental re- 
lationship. Tliere is an alliance with maiier, 
with the object, or extended world ; but the 
thing allied, the mind proper, has itself no 
extension, and cannot be joined in local 
union. Now, we have a difficulty in pro- 
viding any form of language, any familiar 
analogy, suited to this unique conjunction ; 
in comparison with all ordinary unions, it is 
a paradox or a contradiction. We under- 
stand union in the sense of local connection ; 
here is a union where local connection is 
irrelevant, unsuitable, contradictory ; for we 
cannot think of mind without pulling our- 
selves oat of the world of place. When, as 
in pure feeling — pleasure or pain — we change 
fiom the object attitude to the subject atti- 
tude, we have undergone a chan<2:e not to be 
expressed by place ; the fact is not piopeily 
described by the transition fiom tliL^ e.vtenml 
to the internal, for that is slill a ciiiuigc in 
I !ie region of the extended. The nnly nde- 
■quate expressiuu is a chaiNGE of static : a 



change from the state of the extended cog- 
nition to a stale of unextended cognition. By 
various theologians heaven has been spoken 
of as not a place, but a state ; and this is the 
only phrase that I can find suitable to de- 
scribe the vast, though familiar and easy, 
transition from the material or extended, to 
the immaterial or unextended side of our 
being. 

When, therefore, v/e talk of incorporating 
mind with brain, we must be held as speak- 
ing under an important reserve or qualifica- 
tion. Asserting the union in the strongest 
manner, we must yet deprive it of the almost 
invincible association of union in 'place. An 
extended organism is the condition of oftr 
passing into a state where there is no exten- 
sion. A human being is an extended and 
material mass, attached to which i3 the 
power of becoming alive to feeling and 
thought, the extreme remove from all that is 
material ; a condition of trance wherein, 
while it lasts, the material drops out of view 
— so much so, that we have not th. po'""er 
to represent tiie two extremes as lying side 
by side, as c«itainer and contained, or in any 
other mode of local conjunction. The con- 
dition of our existing thoroughly in the one, 
is tne momentary eclipse or extinction of the 
other. 

^ The only mode of union that is not contra- 
dictory is the union of close succession in 
time; or of position in a continued thread 
of conscious life. We are entitled to say 
that the same being is. by alternate fits, ob- 
ject and subject, under extended and under 
unextended consciousness ; and that without 
the extended consciousness the unextended 
would not arise. Without certain peculiar 
modes of the extended — what we call a cere- 
bral organization, and so on— we could not 
have those times of trance, our pleasures, our 
pains, and our ideas, which at present we 
undergo fitfully and alternately with our ex- 
tended consciousness. 

CHAPTER VII. 

HISTORY OF THE THEORIES OF THE SOUL. 

Let me first classify the different views 
that may be held as to the ultimate compo- 
nent elements of a human being. 

I. Two Substances. 
1. BotTi Material. 

a. The prevailing conception among the 
lower races. 
6. Most of the ancient Greek philosophers. 
c. The early Christian Fathers. 

2. An Immaterial and a Material, 
a. Commencement in Plato and in Aristotl«. 
h. The later Fathers from the age of Au- 
gustine. 

c. The Schoolmen. 

d. Descartes. 

e. The prevalent opinion. 

II. One Substance. 

1. Mind and Matter the same, ' - 



allsD AIxD BODY, 



^5 



a. The cmder forms and expressions of 
Materialism. 

b. The Pantheistic idealism of Fichte. 

2. Contrast of Mind and Matter saved. 

Guarded or qualified Materialism—held 

by mauy physiologists and metaphysicians : 

the growing opinion. 

J As the present historical sketch is princi- 

'. pally occupied with (1) the development, and 

<2) the decay of Immaterialism, let me 

further prepare the way by a summary view 

of the arguments of its supporters, which 

are also the points of attack of its assailants. 

1. The soul must partake of the nature or 
essence of the Deity. 

2. The soul has no determinate place in 
the body. 

3. Reason or thought— the power of cog- 
nizing the universal— is incompatible with 
matter (Aquino s). 

4. The dignity of the soul requires an es- 
sence superior to matter. 

5. Matter is divisible ; mind indivisible. 

6. Matter is changeable and corruptible ; 
mind is a pure substance. 

7. Mind is active, or possesses force ; mat- 
ter is passive, inert, the thing acted on. 

8. The sour is the primary source or prin- 
ciple of life. 

9. The mind has a personal identity ; the 
particles of the body are continually chang- 

The interesting and elaborate mquiries, 
recently prosecuted with regard to the men- 
tal condition and modes of thinking of the 
lower race; have contributed the first chap- 
• ler of the history of the soul. 1 allude more 
particularly to the writings of Sir John Lub- 
bock, Mr. McLennan, and Mr. Tylor, who 
have thrown a flood of light on the primitive 
history of mankind ; bringing the develop- 
ment of. religious ideas up to the point 
where Greek philosophy took its start. 

Mr. Tylor has appropriated the word 
*' Animism" to express the recognition, 
throughout all the races of mankind, of the 
soul as a distinct entity. There are two 
classes of souls : those of individual creat- 
ures, like ourselves, capable of continued ex- 
istence after death, and those of purely 
spiritual beings of all grades up to the most 
powerful deities. 

As regards our present subject, two dis- 
tinct problems (says Mr. Tylor) engaged the 
thoughts of men at a low level of culture. 
First, What makes the difCerence between 
a living body and a dead one — between one 
awake and one either asleep or in some life- 
less condition? Secondly, What are those 
human shapes appearing in dreams and vis 
ioDS ? In early savage philosophy, the two 
sets of phenomena were made to account for 
and implement each other, by the concep- 
tion of an avpariiion-soul or a ghost-soul. 
The absence of this constitutes the lifeless 
body ; its presence as a visitor made the 
dream, apparition, or ghost. 

The matter, material, or substance of the 
ghost-soul is a sort of vapor, film, or 



fihadow, impalpable to the touch, and invis- 
ible, except on the particular occasions when 
it manifests itself in dream or vision ; exer- 
cising physical power ; bearing a likeness to 
the person that it' belongs to, and showing 
itself clad in habiliments and accoutrements ; 
capable not only of leaving the body, but of 
flashing swiftly from place to place, with a 
perfect mastery of distance ; able to take 
possession of the bodies of other men, or of 
animals, and to act through these. As a 
matter of course, the soul is the principle of 
life and of all mental activity in the individ- 
ual that it primarily belongs to. (Tylor, 
" Primitive Culture," 1. 387.)* 

The words for expressing the soul show 
the prevailing conception of its nature or 
substance. Foremost ' among these is the 
" shadow" or " shade," so widely diffused 
among civilized languages. The " shadow" 
happily combined two of the requisites of 
the soul, the unsubstantial quality, and the 
form of the individual man ; although, if 
critically considered, it would have various 
drawbacks. Next comes the " heart," from 
the conuectiou of the pulses with full vital- 
ity : allied to which is the widely-spread 
identity of soul and" blood." Thirdly, great 
use has been made of the " breath" in desig- 
nating the soul ; the connection of breathing 
with life being obvious ; psyche, pneuma, 
animus, spiritus, are of this origin; and 
there are parallels in the Semitic and other 
languages. The association of life with the 
" pupil of the eye" has also been traced in 
various traditions, European and others ; 
from the marked difference between the ey« 
in full health and animation, and its appear- 
ance in sickness and in death. (Tylor, pp. 
S88-39L)t 
Thus, we may very fairly say that the sole 



* The possession of a soul was not limited to human 
beings. That animals also had souls was an equally 
prevalent belief, and was the foundation of numerous 
rites and customs. No radical distinction could be 
drawn between men and animals, as to the poissession 
of the attributes groiiped together under the soul. 

The analogy between men and plants is much fee- 
bler ; but it still contains the marked features of life 
and death, health and sickness. This was enough for 
endowing plants too with souls. The doctrine of 
transmigration allows plants to enter into the line of 
successive tenancy of a spirit. Moreover, the exist- 
ence of tree-worship carries with it by inference the 
belief in tree souls. 

The attributing of spirits, or souls, to inanimate 
obji'cts would seem to proceed upon a very attenuated 
analogy. In the case of .great natural agents, as the 
winds, the rivers, the oceans, fire, the sun, the circum- 
stance of exercising power is itself a strong point of 
resemblance, although accompanied with great dis- 
parity ; the personifying of nature has here its com- 
mencement. The so-called object-souls, souls of use- 
ful articles— tools, implements, armor, houses, canoes 
— have a place among the spirits of the inferior races : 
a purely utilitarian conception of the soul. The 
often-cited worship of " stocks and stones" is no 
doubt the lowest degradation of the human faculty of 
reverence; but the reason of its existence has been 
assigned with great probability. (Sir John Lubbock, 
** Origin of Civilization," chap, v.) 

t iVlr. Tylor traces an interesting result of the 
plurality of figurative drsignatibns for the tionl, in the 
development of a plurality of functions, niid even a 
plurality of sovls ;.so «irly did the ambiguities and 
confusions of language govern men's conceptions ot 
things. 



86 



MIND AND LODY. 



theory of mind and body existinf^ in the 
lower stages of culture, is wdouble materialism. 
This was within their grasp. An immaterial 
soul was entirely beyond their intellectual 
comprehension. Until the Greek philosophy 
taught the world how to use and abuse ab- 
stract notions, immaterialism was not an at- 
tainable phase of thought. 

In turnmg next, therefore, to the specula- 
tions of ancient Greece, we are greatly helped 
Ly the well wrought-out delineation of the 
theories that first constituted the education 
of the Grecian thinkers. The bold originality 
and intellectual acumen of the Greeks were 
displayed in this, as in so many other fields ; 
but they could not entirely free themselves 
of their inherited bias. 

Generally speaking, the Greek philosophers 
were double materialists. They duly distin- 
guished between the substance of the soul 
and the substance of the body ; but the sub- 
stance of the soul was still accounted matter 
—namely, the two higher elements, air and 
fire ; to which Atistotle, subtilizing still fur- 
ther, added an ether, or fifth essence (quintes- 
sence). These higher elements made up the 
celestial bodies, as well as the gods them- 
selves ; they were distinguished from the 
lower couple, earth and water, not merely by 
their subtle and impalpable consistency, but 
by the regularity and perfection of their 
movements ; the gross matter below the 
sphere of the moon was subject to great ir- 
regularity, and was on that account an infe- 
rior essence. It was not to bo expected that 
the substance of the human soul would 
transcend the substance of the gods ; the as- 
similation of mind to Deity is common at all 
stages of culture. 

We perceive from this summary view, 
which will presently be unfolded into details, 
that the ancient Greeks made a step in ad- 
vance of the earlier races, by availing them- 
selves of their new physical speculations, 
whereby they classified the great elements — 
earth, water, etc.— and distinguished the sev- 
eral characteristics of these. From the 
" shadow" of the primitive thinker to the air 
and fire of the Grecian sage there was a 
great stride in refinement of conception, al- 
though there was no essential departure from 
a materialistic theory. 

The ancients differed from the moderns in 
not admitting the separate existence of the 
soul (although Aquinas understood Plato's 
pre-cxistence as separation). Those of them 
that held the doctrine of personal immortal- 
ity coupled it with transmigration ; the soul 
in quitting one body found another ready for 
its reception. After - existence was thus 
coupled with pre-existence. It was repug- 
Dant to these philosophers to suppose an ab- 
solute beginning, or creation, either for mat- 
ter or for mind. 

Let us, however, descend to particulars. 

The pre-Sucratic philosophers made very 
little way with the nature of the soul. Sev- 
eral of them touched the subject, and 
brought it under their peculiar scheme of na- 
ture in general, ileracleiius adopted the 



piunciple of Mutation as his basis of explana- 
tion of all things ; and the soul partook of 
the common attribute in a higher degree. Its 
subtlety and fluency enabled it to know all 
other things. Empedocles is the originator of 
the doctrine of the Four Elements— fite, air„ 
water, earth ; with love and hatred as prin- 
ciples of motion, the one uniting and the 
other disjoining the elements. The soul i» 
compounded in the same way ; and on the- 
principle of like being known by like, each 
of its elements knows the like element in the 
world. Anaxagoras set up Nous or Mind as 
the great prime mover of the world. While 
all material bodies were mixtures of all the 
smiple elements, Nous was the pure, un- 
mixed element ; the thinnest and subtlest of 
all matter, more so than either air or fire, but 
of great energy : unacted on by matter, it 
was itself not only cognitive, but active,, 
and the source of all change. Diogenes, of 
Apollonia, adopted Air as the constituent of 
the soul, at once mobile, all-penetrating and 
intelligent. Demokritus, the Atomist, gave 
to tlie element fire, and to the soul, the atoms 
of spherical figure ; it was their nature never 
to be at rest : they were the sources of all 
motion. 

Pythagoras had called the soul a number 
and a harmony, like everything else ; but 
some of the Pythagoreans looked upon it aa 
an aggregate of particles of extreme subtlety 
pervading the air, and in constant agitation. 

In these views we see two distinct tenden- 
cies : to regard the soul as subtle, ethereal, 
and refined, in contrast with the grossness of 
solid matter ; and to view it as the active 
principle of nature, as self-moved, and the 
cause of motion in corporeal things. 

Plato's theory of the soul was one of the 
influences determining the modern settlement 
of the question. It starts from his doctrine 
of eternal, self-existent ideas or forms, which, 
were anterior to what we call the universe, 
or the Kosmos. To the formation of the 
Kosmos, there concurred two factors — the 
ideas and a co-eternal chaos, or indeter- 
minate matter, in discordant and irregular 
motion. A Divine Architect, or Demiurgus, 
on contemplating the ideas, made the world 
in conformity therewith, so far as the things 
of sense could be made to coi respond with 
the eternal types. The architect had to con- 
tend with a pre-existing power, called neces- 
sity, represented by the inegular motions of 
the primitive chaos ; only up to a certain 
point could he control this necessity, and 
make it give place to regularity. With such 
a difficulty to struggle against, the Demiur- 
gus proceeds to c(mstruct or fabricate the 
Kosmos. In its totality this is a vast and 
comprehensive animated being ; the model 
for it is the idea of animal— the self-animal 
avTo^tJov). As created, the Kosmos is a 
scheme of rotatory spheres, and has both a 
soul and a body. The soul, rooted at t he centre 
and pervading the whole, is self-moving, and 
the cause of movement in the Kosmical 
body. The Kosmos. in its peripheral or ce- 
lestial regions, contains the gods ; in its cen- 



MIND AND BODY. 



37 



tral or lower regions of air, water, and earth, 
are placed men, quadrupeds, birds, and 
fishes. From the divine part of the Kosmos 
tliere was a gradual degeneracy in the crea- 
tion of men and animals. The human cra- 
nium was a little Kosmos, coutaiuing a ra- 
tional and immortal soul, of adulterated ma- 
terials ; while in the body there are two in- 
ferior and mortal souls ; the higher of the 
two situated in the chest, and manifesting 
( ncrgy, courage, anger, etc. ; the lower 
l>!.ir.ed in the abdomen, and displajn ug appe- 
tiic. The two lower souls are the disturbers 
of llie higher rational soul, confusing its ro- 
iations, and perverting their harmonious 
properties. Yet notwilhst-anding its superior 
dignity, the soul is never detached from the 
body ; it has the corporeal properties of ex- 
tension and movement ; and it is the moving 
power of the whole system. 

In comparison with the loftiness and purity 
•of the eternal ideas, the Kosmical soul itself 
was but an imperfect mixture, or compromise 
between the ideal and the sensible ; and the 
human soul could be no better. Still, in its 
participation of the ideas (although conjoined 
with sense), it was self-moving and immortal. 

Aristotle set himself to confute all previous 
theories of the soul. He rejected the doc- 
trine of self-motion as the property of soul • 
he regarded as untenable the favorite theory 
of perception — "Like is known only by 
like" — and advanced very pertinent objec- 
tions to that view. As to self-motion, he 
considered it incorrect to say that the soul is 
moved at all ; looking more especially at the 
intellect or Nous, we might rather say that 
the state is not movement, but rest or sus- 
pension of movement. 

Both in his criticism and in his constructive 
theories, Aristotle made an advance upon his 
predecessors. His eye for facts and his so- 
briety of judgment raised him above fanci- 
ful and one-sided vagaries. He had studied 
the actual phenomena of living bodies ; had 
meditated deeply on the wide chasm that di- 
vides the inanimate from the animate world ; 
animated beings as a whole were to his mind 
Tnore completely separated from inorganic 
bodies as a whole, than animals were sepa- 
rated from plants. 

But it was the characteristic of this extraor- 
<linar3'' genius to work at both ends of the 
scientific process ; he was alike a devotee to 
facts and a master of the highest abstrac- 
tions. In this last capacity he origmated 
many of the subtle distinctions that have 
€vcr since permeated human thought. 

Whoever would begin at the beginning of 
Aristotle's ^)hilosophy must first master his 
[Four Causes, or conditions of all production : 
<1) Matter, the material cause, what any- 
thing is made of — marble, brass, wood, etc. 
(2) Form, the forjnal cause, the type, plan, 
or design of the maker — the idea of the stat- 
uary, the working plans of the architect ; (3) 
tiie Efficient cause, or prime mover — human 
muscle, water, wind, or whatever is the force 
employed ; (1) the Fi7ial cause, the end or 
purpose of the workman — his pleasure, 



profit, fame. 

Having once seen the scope of these four 
exhaustive conditions of every work of hu- 
man industry, the reader may let drop the 
two last, as of far inferior importance, and 
concentrate his attention upon the distinction 
between the two first— -matter and foj'm, 
which, more than any of his other distinc- 
tions, lies at the root of Aristotle's general 
thinking. He expands and diversities the 
contrast in endless ways. We must observe, 
however, thai; matter, as one of the four 
causes, is not without form, in the literal 
sense ; a block of marble has its form, al- 
though not the form intended ultimately. 
Now there is some ground for supposing that 
Aristotle, in pushing the distinction to the 
logical point of two abstractions — an abstract 
matter and an abstract fotm, separable, in 
reasoning, but inseparable in reality — had 
still clinging to him the original crmtrast of 
rough vnshaped matter, and the finished pro- 
duction of the workman. At all events, his ac- 
count of an individual substance is to regard 
(1) the form, (2) the matter, (3) the compound 
of the two. 

That he was unduly possessed with the dis- 
tinction between formed matter and raw ma- 
terial, to the obscuring of the logical distinc- 
tion, we may infer from his making out a 
difference of dignity between form and mat- 
ter. Form is the higher, grander, more per- 
fect entity ; Matter has only a second place. 
This remark is entirely out of place in the log- 
ical distinction between the form of a brass 
ring, and the matter of it (abstracted from the 
form). 

Matter may be body, hut it is not necessa- 
rily body. It is intelligible only as the cor- 
relate of form. Each variety of matter has 
its appropriate form, and each variety •f 
form its appropriate matter. There are 
gradations in matter, from the first matter 
(materia prima), which has no form at all, to 
the highest developments which approach 
near to pure form. The only meaning we can 
give to these last statements is to suppose 
that he had in his mind the different stages 
of elaboration' of the material of the globe, 
from a so-called shapeless mass of mud, to 
the consummate organization of a living 
being. 

Another distinction struck out and desig- 
nated by Aristotle, and permanently retained 
from its corresponding to a difference in the 
nature of things, was the distmction of Po- 
tential and Actual. Active agents have mo- 
ments of rest or remission ; they possess 
power, but do not use it. The eye'awake is 
actually engaged in seeing ; in sleep, it is not 
deprived of the power, but holds it unem- 
ployed. Some form of language was re- 
quired to discriminate the situation of having 
power in reserve and quiescence from total 
want of power ; Great Britain, in time of 
peace, is not to be confounded wiih nations 
destitute of a navy. 

The distinction of Potential and Actual 
serves its own turn in its own way, and haa 
no connection with the other great distmc- 



38 



:,:ii;d a:;d eodt 



tion. But Aristotle could not help mixing up 
the two ; he sees in matter by itself the Po- 
tential, in the imparting of form to matter, the 
Actual or full rcalit}'-. There is herefippar- 
entlj'- a reference to the distinction of the two 
causes. Matter in the rough is still a com- 
pound of matter and form ; a block of maible 
from the quarries is no more devoid of 
form, in the logical view, than a slab in the 
frieze of the Parthenon. The transition from 
the Potential to the Actual as regards budieSj 
is a transition from one form to another 
form. Still, for, understanding what fol- 
lows, we must keep in view the identifying 
cf aetualiiy with form in the sense of soma 
superior product of formed material. 

Wo are now to^ see how he applied these 
rather shaky distinctions to the great problem 
of soul and body, ^ 

In the antithesis of matter and form — Po- 
tential and Actual, the' soul ranks nut with 
matter but with form, not with the Poten- 
tial bufc.wiih the actual. It has matter (the 
body) as its correlate ; and tl^is matter is 
highly organized, in other words, fitted with 
capacities or potentialities, and to these the 
soul is the complement. The implication of 
potential matter and actualizing form or soul 
is the totality of the living being. In his 
fondness for carrying out distinctions, Aris- 
totle remarks that the living being has its two 
conditions cf dormancy and full exercise, and 
the first or lowest stage -of actuallly is quite 
enough to distinguish it ; the second or 
higher actuality, therefore, need not be intro- 
duced icto the definition. Accordingly the 
soul stands thus: "The first actuality (en- 
telechy) of a natural organized body, having 
life in potentiality." 

The strong point of the definition is the 
closeness of the connection of mind and body. 
Indeed they are (043 cljsely connected ; or 
rather the manner of their connection is in- 
correctly stated. In point of fact, the two 
are not relativeand correlative, like form and 
matter (logically viewed). Of correlative 
couples — as light-dark, iip-down, cause- 
effect, parent-child, ruler-subject, supporting- 
supported— the one can in no sense subsist 
without the other ; the existence of either by 
itself is a contradiction in terms ; a parent 
without a child, a thing supporting with 
nothing to support, are absurd and unmean- 
ing. Kow, although, in reality, there is a 
close alliance between soul and body, there 
would not be a self-contradiction in suppos- 
ing them separate ; for anything we can see, 
the body might have its bodily functions 
without the soul, and the soul might have its 
psychical functions in some other connec- 
tion that our present bodies. Indeed, Aris- 
totle himself reserves a certain portion of the 
soul for independent existence. We must, 
therefore, pronounce the comparison of soul 
and body to a correlated couple, as irrelevant 
and unsuitable. 

Nevertheless, out of the alleged mutual im- 
plication of the two, Aristotle obtains a very 
felicitous observatioii. . 4-11 the actions and 
passions of the miud, he says, have two sides 



—a formal side as regards the soul, and a 
material side as regards the body. It is the 
business of two different sets of inquirers to 
master these two sides. The physical phi- 
losopher and the mental philosopher would 
view the same passions differently. Take, for 
example, the passion of anger. According to 
the mental philosopher, anger is the appetite 
for injuring some one (a truly menialinct). 
According to the physical philosopher, it is a 
boiling up of blood about the heart, with in- 
crease of animal heat {physical circum- 
stances). Kow, this illustration is perfect as 
representing the two sets of facts, different 
and yet inseparable. It was, however, but a 
casual glimpse, a mere incidental flash in a 
prevailing gloom. His attempt to carry out 
the illustration to intellectual states, as mem- 
ory, merely leads to some correct remarks as 
to the necessity of a sound condition of the 
sentient organs and body generally, in order 
to the exercise of intelligence. 

Other modes are given for stating the im- 
plication or correlation. The soul is the caus& 
and principle of a living body. Of the four 
causes, the bodj-- furnishes the material, and 
the soul comprises all the three remaining, 
formal, movent or efficient final. 

So much for one phase of the Aristotelian 
doctrine— the mode of stating the union of 
the soul with the body. The other phase re- 
spects the gradation of souls— a succession of 
nutrient, sentient, intelligent principles. 

The remark has already been made that 
Aristotle had something like an adequate 
sense of the difference between inanimate 
matter and living bodies. As, perhaps, the 
earliest scientific naturalist, he perceived that 
the living body was characterized by organi- 
zation, and by the possession of remarkable 
powers or functions. He did not so strongly 
realize the boundary between life without 
consciousness (as in plants) and hfe with con- 
sciousness (in animals and man). Hence he 
treated as geuerically homogeneous all living 
functions, all the active powers belongmg to 
organized individuals. He applied the higher 
term " soul" to all the characteristic functions 
of living bodies, from nutrition up to the 
loftiest attributes of intellect. 

Accordingly, we must start from the nu- 
tritive soul, the basis of all the others, the 
first constituent of the living individual, the 
implication of form with matter in a body or- 
ganized as a nutritive body ; the soul of di- 
gestion, nutrition, and propagation of the 
species. Like all soul (as will be seen) it par- 
takes of the celestial heat, through which an- 
imated bodies possess their warmth. 

From the nutritive we pass to the higher 
soul, both nutritive and sentient Herein 
lies the characteristic superiority of the ani- 
mal to the plant. There is a great advance 
in point of dignity, as we may suppose. 
Applying the universal solvent — form versus 
matier — we are to remark that the soul, as 
sentient and percipient, receives the form of 
the thing perceived without the matter ; 
which is to beg the whole question of exter- 
nal perception. Nevertheless, Aristotle's dis- 



MIND A.ND BODY. 



C9 



cus'sion of the senses and scnsaticn at large 
is fall of just and oiitrinal remarks, and was 
a real contribution to psj^cbology. 

From the sentient soul we pass to the 
Noetic, the Nous, or intelligence. The draw- 
ing of too shari^ a line between sense and in- 
telligence has been the fruitful source of con- 
fusions in philosophy ; and has lent itself to 
the doctrine of the iinmaterial soul. At the 
same time Aristotle fully recognizes the de- 
pendence of intellect upon sensation ; we 
caunut cogitate or reason without sensible im- 
ages (phantasms). But to reconcile this with 
the -views that he took of the special gran- 
deur and isolation of the Nous was beyond 
his might. He declares (against his own defi- 
nition of the soul) that the noetic function 
has no bodilj'' organs, that it is form, pure 
and simple (seeming to contradict further the 
mutual relationship of form and matter). 

At this point, however, he looks out for a 
new ally. The scene changes from earth to 
heaven. The human soul is not to be fin- 
ished without celestial fire. 

The grand region of form (pure and un- 
adulterated) is the CELESTIAL BODY, the en- 
tire concave of heaven, with its eternal rota- 
tions, the abode of all divine natures, com- 
prising the invisible gods, and the sun, moon, 
and stars. From this celestial region pro- 
ceeds all life, all force ; to every soul, every 
form that animates the matter of a living 
body, it imparts its vital properties. It is 
needless to comment further on the self-con- 
tradictory employment of the abstraction, 
form, to signify the heavenly substance. 
Aristotle's physics and astronomy were his 
Weakest parts, and laid him open to the mer- 
ciless scourge of Galileo. Even there he is 
not without brilliant inspirations ; but he is 
led captive, with the vulgar, by the enchant- 
ment of distance. 

The Nous emanated from a peculiar and 
select influence of the celestial body ; and its 
own operations are correspondingly digni- 
fied. It cognizes the abstract and the uni- 
versal. It has two modes or degrees, on 
which hang great issues. There is, on the 
one hand, the receptive intellect, Intellectus 
Patiens, and, on the other, the constructive 
or reproductive intellect, Intellectus Agens ; 
the first perishes with the body ; the second, 
the Agens, is intellectual energy, in the purest 
manifestation, separable from the animal 
body, and immortal. The climax is now 
reached ; logical consistency is abandoned ; 
and there is gained a transcendental starting- 
point for the imraaterialism of after ages. 
Of the best known Greek sects, the Epicu- 
reans denied altogether the survival of the 
soul. The Stoics affirmed the soul as well as 
the body to be material, and considered it a 
detached fragment of the all-pervading soul 
of the world, into which, after the death of 
the individual, it was reabsorbed. 

Our course takes us next to the Fathers of 
the Christian Church. 

The early Fathers had been pagan philoso- 
phers before they were Christians ; they thus 
brought with them into Christianity more or 



less of the tenets of their respective philo- 
sophical sects. Accordingly, the double ma- 
terialism of antiquity was a prevailing tenet 
down to the fifth centur}'. A proper imma- 
terial or spiritual substance, as recognized by 
us, was as yet incomprehensible to the greater 
number of men. Such a thing, no doubt, 
had made a beginning in the Greek schools, 
but was not as yet fully formed even there ; 
and it received no aid, either from Judaism ? 
or from Christianity. In these early centuries^ 
it was very generally held, as essential to the 
Christian doctrine of future rewards and pun- 
ishments, that mind should be a corporeal 
substance ; for only matter could be suscep- 
tible to physical pain and pleasure. 

In general, we may say, that the early 
Fathers, whether accepting the Oriental and 
Greek notions of transmigration and pre-ex- 
istecce, or, like Irenseus and Arnobius, mak- 
ing the immortality of the soul depend upon 
the will of God in his purposes for the salva- 
tion of part of mankind, describe in nearly 
the same terms tlie essence of Deity and the 
essence of the soul. Before and even after 
the Nicene Council, God was often described 
as a "sublime light." A converted Epicu- 
rean would add to this a human form ; a 
Platonist would use the term " incorporeal " 
in the Platonic sense of the word, which was 
not the modern sense. 

From Dr. Donaldson's " History of Chris- 
tian Doctrine" may be gleaned the views on 
the soul held by the Fathers of the second cen- 
tury, named the Apologists. They were 
influenced by Platonic philosophy much less 
than is generally supposed. The only Pla- 
tonist among them was Athenagoras. They 
were much more influenced by the prevailing 
materialistic tendencies ; Stoicism being 
what might be called the established religion 
of the time. Justin Martyr's expressions on 
the nature of God and the soul are indefinite, 
but he would not seem to have recognized 
wholly immaterial spirit : although he rejects 
the Anthropomorphism of the Jews, he as- 
cribes tu God shape and locality ; and though 
nowhere definite on the state of the soul after 
death, he considers it heresy to say that the 
soul is taken up to heaven ; and he holds 
that men rise with the same bodies. Tatian, 
however, the pupil of Justin, both is more 
definite, and recognizes a wholly immaterial 
spirit conjoined with a material spirit in the 
human body ; God is immateiial, fleshless, 
and bodiless. His doctrine is, that there are 
two spirits in the universe, manifesting them- 
selves in individual varieties of form ; at one 
time they lived in union, but the lower spirit 
(the soul) became disobedient, tied from the 
perfect spirit, and sought a baser fellowship 
with matter ; yet after all, when reunited as 
in man with the higher spirit, it becomes im- 
mortal. Theophilus does not maintain the im- 
materiality of God ; he only holds with Just iii 
that the form of God cannot be expressed. 
Athenagoras dificered essentially from liis 
contemporaries in regard to the nature of Iho 
soul : he does not mention Pneuma, or higher 
spirit ; and he speaks of the soul as piTrcly 



40 



MIND AND BODY. 



spirituul, though with a spirituality liable to 
he disturbed by its material tendencies. 

Clement of Alexandria speaks thus of 
God : " A positive knowledge of God is im- 
possible : we know only what he is not. He 
is formless and nameless, though we ;ire right 
to ca!i him by the noblest names. He is in- 
finile ; he is neither Genus, nor Differentia, 
nor Species, nor Individual, norNumber, nor 
Accident, ujr anything that any positive at- 
lii!)ule can be ascribed to." This is cer- 
tainly not corporeality, neither is it what we 
mean by an incorporeal nature. It is merely 
working up a powerful impression, by the 
rhetorical employment of negatives. 

Origen conceived of Go"d as a purely 
spiritual being — not fire, not light, not ether, 
but an absolutely incorporeal unity or monad. 
Only on the supposition of incorporeality can 
he be consideied absolutely unchangeable, 
for everything material is changeable, divisi- 
l)le, transitory. This is an obvious following 
out of the transcendental germs in Greek 
philosophy. "In the world, God, who is 
himself unextended, is everywhere present 
by his active power, like the builder in his 
work, or as our soul, in its sensitive part, is 
spread through the whole body ; only he 
does not fill evil with his presence." ** The 
human soul, as a created spirit, was inclosed 
in matter because of sin." With all this 
Origen further remarks that the word ** in- 
corporeal " is not to be found in Scripture, 
and thut a spirit strictly means a body. 

Tertullian is represented (by Ueberwcg) 
as joining, in the manner of the Stoics, with 
an ethics tending to tlie repression of sense, 
a sensationalist doctrine of cognition, and a 
mtiterialistic psychology. He is a coarse 
Realist, " The senses deceive not : all that 
is real is body. The corporeality of God 
does not, however, detract from his sublim- 
ity, nor that of the soul from its immortality. 
Ev^ery thing that is, is body after its kind. 
The Deity is a very pure luminous air, 
diffused everywhere. What is not body is 
iiolhing. Who shall deny that God is body, 
llijugh he is a spirit ? A spirit is a body of 
ils own kind, in its own form. The soul has 
the human form, the same as its body, only 
it is delicate, clear, and ethereal. Unless it 
were corporeal, how could it" (as the Stoics 
also said) " be afiected by the body, be able 
to sujBfer or be nourished within the body ?" 
' ' Man is made in the likeness of God ; God, 
in forming the first man, took for pattern the 
futuie man Chrtst. " 

The materialism of TertulUan is thus pro- 
nounced and decisive. Then, again, Mehto 
wrote a treatise to prove God's corporeality. 
Gregory Nazianzen conceives of spirit as 
P'-ssessing only the properties of motion and 
(ii {fusion. Maximus could not accept the 
inunensity of God, because he did not see 
1- rw two substan-ces could exist together in 
Dio •^aA\e space. Even when the Deity was 
«vlh'.l incorporeal, this property was not in- 
cumpr.tible with visibility under certain err- 
cunistances ; it meant only a negation, some- 



what in the manner of the ano?ents, of th« 
grosser properties of matter. That spia-its 
could be seen was a very common belief ; 
many persons declared that they had seen 
the souls of the dying as they left the body. 
Gradually, however, the attribute of visibility 
was abstracted from the nature of spirit; 
and the Deity began to be considered incor- 
poreal, meaning also invisible ; but the hu- 
man soul did not rise at once to the same 
august distinction. Thus in Origen, the sold 
would seem to have a middle place between 
gross matter and the one tiuly spiritual 
essence— the Deity. It is to him a matter of 
astonishmei.t that the material soul shoidd 
have ideas of immaterial things , and he con- 
cludes that it must possess, if not an abso- 
lute, at least a relative immateriality. 

So much for the double materialism pre- 
vailing among the early Fathers. We shall 
next see the beginning of the spiritualistic 
movement within the Church. At this point, 
however, we may bring in the Neo-Platonista 
who represent the closing iufluence of Pagan 
philosophy, and acted perceptibly on the 
later Fathers and the Schoolmen, 

Plotinus (304-269 AD.) agrees with Plato 
in the grand distinction of the ideal and the 
sensible, and in attributing to the soid an in- 
termediate nature. He differs from Plato 
with regard to the relation of the ideas to the 
One or the Good. While in the Platonic sys- 
tem the One or the Good is included as the 
highest among the ideas, and all the ideas 
are considered to have independent existence 
— in Neo-Platonism it is elevated above the 
ideas, and is made the source whence they 
emanate. 

The One or the Good is the primary 
essence, the original unity, from which all 
things have sprung. It is neither Nous or 
reason, nor anything cognized by reason ; for 
each of these necessarily implies the other ; 
and the nature of the primary essence, as ab- 
solute unity, forbids its being identified with 
anything implying duality. Things emanate 
from the One, as rays emanate from the sun. 
The direct product of the One is the Nous, 
which is an image of it. The image invol- 
untarily turns toward its original in order to 
behold it, and, through this act of compre- 
hending what is supra-sensible, it becomes 
Nous. In the Nous the ideas are immanent, 
not as mere thoughts, but as its component 
parts. 

The soul is an image and product of the 
Nous, as the Nous is of the One ; and it also 
in its turn produces the corporeal. It is 
turned partly to the Nous as its producer, 
and partly to the corporeal, its product. 
There is, therefore, in the soul an ideal in- 
divisible element, and a divisible element, 
from which the material world is produced. 
The soul is an immaterial substance. It is 
not a body, nor is it inseparable from a body ; 
for not oiily the Nous, its highest principle, 
but even memory, perception, and the vege- 
tative force are separable from the body. 
The body is in the to d, not the soul in the 
body. Thus a portion cf the soul is without 



MIND AND BODY 



41 



any body ; and for the functions of this por- 
tion the co-operation of the body is entirely 
unnecessary. Even the facuUies of sense are 
not contained in the body ; they are only 
'present with it, as forces given by the soul to 
the various 07gans for the discharge of their 
functions. The whole soul is present not only 
in the whole tody, but also in each separate 
part, not being "^divided among the mem- 
bers ; it is entirely 'present in the v>liole, and 
entirely in every part. In one sense, indeed, 
the soul is divided, since it is in all parts of 
tlie body ; but in each of these parts it is 
present as a whole. 

Here we perceiv^e a distinct advance tow- 
ard immaterialism. In the Neo-Platonic doc- 
trines are to be found the germs of vari- 
ous ideas that afterward played a prominent 
p^rt in the present subject. That the lower 
£.<rvvers of mind and life are separable from 
the body, and that the body is contained in 
the sjul, are tenets reproduced in the subse- 
quent development of the subject. The no- 
tion that the whole soul is in the whole body 
and in every part was taken up by Augus- 
tine, then by Claudian Mamertus, arid from 
them passed over to the Schoolmen, with 
whom it was a favorite maxim. 

We now proceed to the later Fathers. 
The spiritualistic movement may be said to 
"be headed by St. Augustine, the most pro- 
found and metaphysical of all the Latin Fa- 
thers ; by Claudian Mamertus, a priest of 
Vienne, in the south of France ; and in 
Asia, by Nemesius, Bishop of Emesa. 

But even anterior to Augustine (354-430), 
there were indications of the coming change. 
In this view, Gregory of Nyssa (331-394) is 
of importance. His work on the Creation 
of Man (says Ueberweg) contains a number 
of psychological remarks. Scriptural views 
*ire mix3d up with Platonic and Aristotelian 
opinions. The possibility of the creation of 
matter, by the Divine Spirit, depends upon 
its being the unily of quaUties in themselves 
immaterial. The human spirit interpene- 
trates the whole body ; it came into existence 
with the body, and neither before nor after 
it. The spirituality of God, which is beyond 
dispute, proves the possibility of immaterial 
existence. The soul is a created, living, 
thinking, and (so long as it is provided with 
organs of sense) percipient entity. The think- 
ing power does not belong to matter ; other- 
wise matter generally would exhibit it [a happy 
hit], and in consequence would assume a 
variety of artificial forms. 

In Augustine's discussion of this subject, 
the most remarkable point is his clear con- 
ception of the contrast between the respec- 
tive properties of matter and of mind. He 
maintains that such attributes as length, 
breadth, depth, hardness, etc., are attributes 
only of matter, and are lanintelligible when 
applied to miad. "The soul must not be 
■conoeived as in any way long, or broad, or 
strong. These are corporeal properties, and 
so we are inquiring about the so\il after the 
manner of bodies" (De Quant. Animae, cap. 
S). Thus while other qualities, such as hard- 



ness and color, are occasionally mentioned, 
extension is always recognized as the great 
dislioclive attribute of matter. 

On this definition of matter Augustine 
founds his proofs of the soul's immateriality. 
It does not possess this characteristic prop- 
erty of matter, and therefore it cannot be ma- 
terial. This position he very often states and 
defends, llis principal arguments are drawn 
from the superiority of the soul to the body, 
from the nature of consciousness and of 
memory, and from the equal presence of the 
soul in every part of the body. 

The soul is superior to the body. From it 
alone are derived life, movement", and sensa- 
tion, none of which are possessed by the body 
after the soul has fled. Thus the soul, 
though working through bodily organs, must 
be, in its own nature, superior to the body it 
animates. It is invisible, incorporeal, spirit- 
ual. 

Several arguments are drawn from our 
consciousness of mental states. The soul, he 
says, is known by us directly. Our 
thoughts, desires, knowledge, ignorance, are 
better known than the objects around us, 
since these last are perceived through the 
madium of bodily organs. If, then, the soul 
be corporeal, it must be known to us as such. 
Yet in this direct knowledge of it we have 
no cognizance of corporeal qualities, such as 
size, shape, or color ; and hence Augustine 
concludes that no such qualities belong to it. 
Moreover, while we positively know that 
thinking and feeling are properties of the 
soul, we can only suppose that it is a material 
substance. That we have no real knowl- 
edge of such a substance is proved by the 
variety of conjectures about its nature. If 
we separate what we really know from what 
we only think, there remain such properties 
as life, thought, and feeling, which none 
have ever doubted. 

Another argument is founded on the nature 
of memory. In the mind are stored up the 
images of a great variety of material objects. 
Though the body is small, the mind can take 
in the images of the widest domains ; " and 
that it is not diffused through the places is 
shown by this, that it is not as it were com- 
prehended by the images of the greatest 
places, but rather comprehends them, not by 
any inclosing, but by a certain indescribable 
power" (Contra Epist. Manich., cap. 17). 
If, then, these images, which resemble bodies, 
are really incorporeal, we cannot believe 
otherwise of what has no appearance of cor- 
poreal properties. And if the things con- 
tained in the mind are immaterial, so also is 
the mind itself. 

Augustine lays considerable stress on th« 
Neo-Platonic subtlety that the whole soul is 
at the same time in every part of tiie body. 
" The soul is at the same time wholly pres- 
ent not only in the entire mass of the body, 
but also in every particle of it" (De Immort. 
Animae, cap. 16). " When there is any pain 
in the foot, the eye looks, the tongue speaks, 
the hand moves ; and this would not occur 
unless what of the soul is in those parts felt 



4.2 



MIND AND BODY. 



also in the foot ; nor if not present in the 
foot could it feci what has there happened " 
(Id. ib.). And this presence of the whole 
soul iu every part of the body is not similar 
to the diffusion of bodies through space ; for 
these are larger or smaller according to the 
space occupied. Nor is it like the case of a 
quality, such as whiteness, being wholly 
present in every part of some concrete ob- 
ject ; for the matter that is white in one part 
has no connection with the whiteness in any 
other part. Wherefore the soul possesses a 
peculiar nature of its own, having qualities 
exhibited by no material substance. In ad- 
dition to these general arguments, Augustine 
brings forward special considerations to prove 
the immateriality of the rational soul. The 
objects of the reason are incorporeal. The 
images of corporeal things, which it com- 
pares and judges, though resembling matter, 
are really imextended, and therefore imma- 
terial. Truth and wisdom, which are per- 
ceived by the reason, have no trace of ma- 
terial properties. Nor in the faculty itself 
can we detect any such attributes. It can- 
not be divided into parts and extended 
through space in the manner of bodies. 
From all this, therefore, it is concluded that 
the rational soul is not material. 

In answer to the objection that, if the soul 
has no length, breadth, or thickness, it must 
he nothing, Augustine maintains that there 
are many really existing things that have 
none of these qualities. Justice, for example, 
has no extension, and yet it is not merely a 
real thing, but is of a higher nature than any 
corporeal object. The Deity is also without 
these attributes ; and whoever believes the 
soul to be corporeal ought in consistency to 
hold the same opinion of God. The want of 
such properties, therefore, really proves the 
soul to be of higher dignity and value. 

Since, then, (he soul is not matter, it may 
be asked by what name we are to call it. 
Augustine replies that " whatever is not mat- 
ter and yet has real existence, is properly 
termed spirit " (De Quant. Animae, cap. 
13). This, he says, is supported by the usage 
of Scripture, though the word is also applied 
there to the intellectual part alone. 

Having drawn so broad a contrast between 
mind and matter, Augustine felt the standing 
difHcully of conceiving how the immaterial 
soul can act on the matter of the body in pro- 
ducing movement. Hence he thought that 
the soul does not act directly on the denser 
parts of the body, but on a corporeal sub- 
stance nearer in its nature to the incorporeal. 
This substance he calls light and air, and 
supposes that these are mingled through the 
denser materials. The commands of the soul 
are first communicated to this more subtle 
matter, and by it are immediately conveyed 
to the heavier elements. 

As regards the immortality of the soul, 
Augustine holds that no created being can be 
immortal in the same sense as God, since the 
existence of ever}'^ creature depends contin- 
ually on the Divine will. At the same time 
lie maintains that none of the changes we see 



occurring, either in the soul itself or in the 
body, tend toward the destruction of the soul. 
Even matter is not destroyed by change : 
however the form may be altered, it is still 
matter as much as before. And if such is 
the case with corporeal things, we cannot 
suppose that in this point the soul is inferior 
to them, since mind of any sort is supe- 
rior to all material objects. Still further, he 
reasons that the soul cannot be destroyed by 
any other created being, whether corporeal 
or spiritual. Matter, from its inferior na- 
ture, cannot destroy it. Nor can any more 
powerful spiritual being ; for one mind is 
subject to another only in so far as its own 
will may allow such subjection, and it is evi- 
dent that no mind will desire its own de- 
struction. Thus the soul can be destroyed 
by nothing but the will of God. 

If it be thought that the soul maj' die in 
the sense that, though not destroyed, it may 
exist without life, Augustine shows that such 
an idea involves contradiction in terms. 
The soul is life, and the source of life to 
everything that lives. " The mind, therefore, 
cannot die. For if it can be without life, it 
is not mind, but something made alive by 
mind" {non animus, sed animaium aliquid est 
— De Immort. Animse, cap. 9)-. 

The argument from the natural " longing 
after immortalitj''" is frequently insisted on 
by Augustine. All men, he says, desire to 
be happy, and happiness cannot be genuine 
unless its possessor also desires its continu- 
ance. Now no man can be truly happy un- 
less he have what he desires ; and so, life 
must be eternal or happiness cannot be at- 
tained. Thus nature demands immortality. 
If it be objected that this argument implies 
that all, including even the bad, m»st altaia 
to happiness, Augustine answers that happi- 
ness is granted to the good, not because they 
desire to live happily, but because they desire 
to live well. Happiness is the reward of 
goodness ; and since all do not desire a good, 
life, all cannot obtain its reward. 

Claudian Mamertus, about the year 470, 
wrote a treatise " De Statu Animse, " in reply 
to an anonymous work, afterward known to 
have been written by Faustus, Bishop of 
Regium in Gaul. Faustus had maintained 
that God alone is incorporeal ; all created 
things are matter, the soul being composed 
of air. Mamertus answers from the Augus- 
tinian stand-point. According to Mr. Lewes, 
he has exhausted all the capital arguments, 
whereby Descaites was thought to have es- 
tablished the doctrine of immaterial ism. 
Omitting his discussion of various points not 
immediately connected with our subject', and 
his extensive array of authorities from phi- 
losophers, from ecclesiastical writers, and 
from Scripture, we present in the following^ 
sketch an outline of Ids reasoning : 

Man was made in the image of God, and, 
according to the admission of Faustus him- 
self, the Divine nature is incorporeal. Now,. 
since there can be no resemblance to God in 
matter, we must believe that this image is to 
be found in an immaterial soul. Moieover, 



MIND AND BODY 



the immaterial is of a higher nature than the 
material ; and since the Deity is infinitely 
goad, he will desire to create beiogs of tlie 
highest dignity, without which his works 
would be incomplete, and, being omnipo- 
tent, he will carry out this desire. 

Ayain, the soul is not limited by place (^7- 
localis). It is wholly present in every part 
of the body as well as in the whole, just as 
God is present through the whole universe ; 
otherwise a portion of it would be lost when 
any part of the body is cut off. Whereas 
no material object can be present in more 
than one place at the same time, the soul at 
once animates the body, and as a whole sees 
through the eye, hears through the ear, etc. 
Its motion is not in space ; it takes place only 
in time ; being simply, as he explains, the 
change of thoughts and feelings. When the 
body moves, this local motion is not com- 
municated to the soul. 

The soul has no quantity, for place and 
quantity are inseparable. While no being 
except God is entirely beyond the sphere of 
the Categories (Aristotelian), it is only matter 
that is subject to them all ; thus the soul 
has quality, but not quantity. In one sense, 
indeed, it has measure, number, and weight ; 
but then measure must be understood of de- 
grees of wisdom ; number as the mental per- 
ception of external numbers ; and weight 
must be applied to the will as the moving 
power in the mind. 

The soul is not contained by the body, says 
Mamertus, but in reality contains it — as had 
already been taught by Plotinus. This 
point he endeavors to prove by Scripture, 
and then applies it to show that the soul 
Jnust be immaterial ; for no material sub- 
stance can at once contain the body and be 
■within it as its animating principle. If it be 
thought a contradiction that the soul is in a 
place and yet is not bounded by place, Ma- 
mertus replies that the universe itself presents 
a similar difficulty ; it cannot be contained in 
any place, else that place would require 
another, and so on till we should have to at- 
tribute to it the Divine perfection of infinity. 

In addition to all these considerations, Ma- 
mertus also mentions the argument — previ- 
ously employed by AugustineV and afterward 
by Descartes — that reasoning is inherent in 
the substance of the soul ; and as reason is 
incorporeal, so also is the soul. In a similar 
manner he also argues from the will and the 
memory. 

In refuting the arguments of Faustus, Ma- 
mertus displays force and ingenuity. Thus 
he fully examines the argument from the cor- 
poreal allusions in the parable of Lazarus and 
Dives. He shows that if these allusions 
prove the materiality of the soul, they must' 
all be taken in the most literal sense, which; 
cannot be done without producing inconsis- ' 
tencius and absurdities. 

Nemesius, Bishop of Emesa, in Phoenicia 
(who flourished about the year 450), deserves 
mention as havmg had an influence in estab- 
lishing immaterialism in the Eastern Church. 
He wrote a work on ihe nature of the soul. 



in which he occupies chiefly the ground of 
Neo-Platonism. He holds that the soul is an 
immaterial substance. It is involved, as 
Plato had taught, in eternal self-produced 
motion, from which the motion of the body 
is derived. He maintains the pre-existence of 
the soul, and holds that its nature, as supra- 
sensible, involves immortality. 

From the fifth century down to the great 
development of Scholasticism, headed by 
Thomas Aquinas, in the thirteenth, there oc- 
curred no important changes of view in con- 
nection with our subject. In this latter period 
it again emerges into prominence, but now 
the point of view is changed. All the reason- 
ings of the Schoolmen were cast in the 
moulds of the Aristotelian philosophy, and 
cannot be understood until Aristotle's leading 
modes of thought and expression are first 
comprehended. (See above under Aristotle, 
especially the explanations of Form and 
Matter, Actuality and Potentiality .) Thus, 
although Aquinas was a decided immaterial- 
ist, he does not aim, like Augustine and 
Claudian Mamertus, to show that the soul is 
without the material attributes of extension, 
quantity, etc. ; he endeavors to prove that it 
is, in the Aristotelian sense, the actuality of 
the body and pure iramateritil form. Hence 
in order to trace the development of the 
views culminating in Aquinas, we must re- 
cur to Aristotle. 

Tbe course from Aristotle to Aquinas is 
shown in the following summary from 
Ueberweg. " Aristotle regarded as form (hii 
highest abstraction and antithesis to matter), 
immaterial, and yet individual, the Deity, and 
the active Nous or intellect — the only immor- 
tal part of the human soul, leaving uncertain 
the relation between this immortal Nous and 
the mortal compound of soul and body. 
Among his immediate followers, as Dicser- 
chus and Strato, the prevailing view was that 
all form is immanent in matter. Alexander 
the Aphodisian ascribes to Deity, but to Deity 
only, a transcendental existence, free from 
matter, and yet individual ; he makes the hu- 
man soul depend entirely on matter for its in- 
dividual existence. The later commentators 
give<i over to Neo-Platonism, as Themistius, 
assert the human Nous to have the same in- 
dependent and individual existence as the 
Deity. On this side Thomas Aquinas ranges 
himself." 

Albertus Magnus (1193-1280) deserves to 
be mentiDued in this connection as having 
influenced the opinions of hispupil Aquinas. 
He held that the active intellect is a part of 
the soul, being in each man the principle 
that confers form and individuality. In this 
principle are also contained the forces called 
by Aristotle nutritive and sentient, and hence 
these latter powers are separable from tlu 
body and immortal. Every human soul is 
immortal by virtue of its community with 
God. 

Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) represents the 
highest stage in the development of the 
Scholastic philosophy. His views on the 
nature of the soul are to be found in several 



4i 



MIND AND BODY. ^ 



of his numerous philosophical and theologi- 
cal works, but they are most conveniently 
gathered from the first part of his " Summa 
Thuologiae," where the points are fully and 
systematically set forth. The following ab- 
aliact includes oul}'' such of his opinions on 
the soul as concern our present purpose. 

In maintaining that the soul is not mate- 
rial, he says it is the primary source of life 
in all living beings. Now while body may 
be a secondary source of living operations, as 
the eye, for example, is the souice of vision, 
body as such is not living or a source of life. 
It must have this power as a body of a par- 
ticular kind {pe?' hoc quod est tale corpus), and 
the source whence anything receives its char- 
acter is its actuality. ' The soul, therefore, 
which is the primary source of life, is not 
body, but the actuality of body ; as heat, 
which is the source whence bodies are made 
hot, is not body, but a sort of actuahty of 
body." (Sum. Theol. I. 76, 1.) 

The soul of man is an independent sub- 
stance. For by the intellect man cognizes 
the natures of all kinds of bodies. This could 
not be, if the intellect were matter, since the 
thing knowing must have nothing in it of the 
nature of the objects known ; nor, if it cog- 
nizes by means of body, because the deter- 
minate nature of the medium would hinder 
it from knowing all kinds of bodies, just as 
a diseased eye distorts vision, or the color of 
a vessel affects the color of a liquid contained 
in it. Therefore the intellectual principle 
works by itself without connection with the 
body ; and as only a substance can thus 
work by itself, the soul of man is an inde- 
pendent substance. But this does not apply 
to the souls of brutes ; for the sentient soul 
cannot work of itself, but requires the co- 
operation of the body. I 

Thomas holds, as already stated, that the 
soul is pure form, entirely without matter. 
As regards the intellect in particular, it could 
not otherwise cognize the essence of things. 
Matter is the principle of individuality, and 
would prevent the intellect from cognizing 
the universal, just as the sentient powers, 
which operate through bodily organs, per- 
ceive only individual things. 

While repudiating the Platonic doctrine of 
pre-existence, Aquinas maintained the im- 
mortality of the soul as flowing from its im- 
materiality. It cannot perish by anything ex- 
ternal to itself ; for since it is tilting that the 
beginning and the end of existence should 
take place in similar ways, what has inde- 
pendent being can perish only of itself. Nor 
can it perish in this way ; for because form 
is actuality (see above in Aristotle), existence 
belongs to it from its very nature, " Matter 
perishes through being separated from its 
form ; but it is impossible that form should 
be separated from itself ; wherefore it is im- 
possible that existing form should cease to 
have being. " (This is similar to the reason- 
ing of Augustine given above, and the latter 
half of the argument is equivalent to the 
Platonic view in the Ph cedo, ihat life is in- 
separable from the very notion of the soul.) 



Besides, says Aquinas, adapting to his own 
modes of thought the argument from the 
longing of the soul after immortality, " every- 
thing naturally desires existence after its own 
manner, and in things having the faculty of 
knowing, desire follows knowledge. Now 
while sense can know existence only undrr 
the limits of space and time {cognoscit esse sub 
hie et nunc), the intellect apprehends it abso- 
lutely, and with reference to all time. Hence 
beings having intellect naturally desire to ex- 
ist always, and a natural desire cannot exist 
in vain." ^;Sum. Theol. I. 75, 6.) 

So much for the essential nature of the 
soul. In a separate discussion, he considers 
the union of soul and body. Here he inquires 
whether the intellectual principle is united to 
the body as its form. He reasons that what- 
ever brings a thing into actuality is its form ; 
and the principle that makes the body living 
is the soul, from which it receives growth, 
feeling, motion, and also understanding. And 
unless the intellect thus stands to the body 
in the intimate relation of form to matter, we 
cannot comprehend how its actions can be 
attributed to the man as his. The Platonic 
doctrine, that the soul stands to the body 
merely in the relation of its moving princi- 
ple, is repudiated. Thomas adds to all this 
that the higher any form is, the less it is 
mmgled with matter, and the more does it 
excel matter in its operations. And as the 
human soul is the noblest of all forms, some 
part of its operations has no relation to mat- 
ter, namely, the operations of the intellect. 

Following his master Albertus, Aquinas 
holds that the nutritive, the sentient, and the 
intellectual faculties are exercised by one 
and the same soul. He argues that other- 
wise a man would not be really one, for the 
unity of any object comes from the same 
form that gives it being. Besides, their 
identity appears from the fact that any 
operation of the soul, when intensely car- 
ried on, hinders any other. Thus the higher 
form really includes the lower one — the sen- 
tient and the nutiitive souls of Aristotle. 
(This opinion received dogmatic sanction at 
the Council of Vienne, in 1311.) 

Aquinas holds the idea, originated by Plo- 
tinus, that the whole soul is present in the 
whole and in every part of the body. But he 
chaiacteristically distinguishes three kinds of 
totality. The soul is not pieeent in each 
part as a whole in any quantitative sense, 
nor is it present in the wliole of its powers. 
This presence as a whole in each part must 
be understood as a presence of its whole na- 
ture and essence. 

In discussing the faculties of the scul, 
Thomas arguee that they do not all icmain 
when the soul is separated from the body. 
Some powers are connected with the soul 
alone, as intellect and will ; and these remain 
in the incorporeal state. Others are joined 
to the body, as the sentient and nutritive 
parts ; and these disappear as to actua, 
operation, when their bodily organs perish 
though they still potentially remain in the 
soul. The intellect is divided, after Aristo- 



MIND A.ND BODY. 



45 



tie, into active, theoriziDg, or reproductive 

{inte.llecius agens) ; and passive, or receptive 
lintellecius p'aiiens). An active intellect is 
necessary in order that the forms of material 
thiniKS, which are mingled wiih maltes, may 
be matie intelligible in actuality. This ac- 
tive intellect belongs to the soul ; for though 
we may suppose (according to the Platonic 
vie\r) a higher and separate iutellect, in 
which the intellect of man participates— 
which Aquinas in one sense admits, making 
the Deity such an intellect— yet we must sup- 
pose that this participation gives the human 
intellect the power of separating the universal 
from the particular ; which is to concede the 
operation of an active intellect within the 
sou). 

The following diagram exhibits the tran- 
sition from Aristotle to Aquinas. Let the 
continuous lines represent the material sub- 
stance, and the dotted lines the immaterial. 
Aristotle's scheme stands thus : 

A. Soy^ of r>kints. 

Withoat Consciousness. 

B. A^nimal Soul. 

^ Body and Mind inseparable. 

C. Human Soul— "Kovs— Intellect. 
t. Passive Intellect. 

— ; — ; — ; — ; — \ Body and Mind inseparable. 

11. Active Intellect— Cognition of the highest prin- 
ciples ; 
Pure Form; detached from mat- 
ter; the Celestial substance; 
immortal. 

Compare tlie position of Aquinas : 

A. Vegetable or Nutritive Soul. 

~ — ' Incorporates an Immaterial part, 

^ although unconscious. 

B. Animal Soul. 

Has an Immaterial part, with con- 

sciousness. 

0. Intellect. 
Purely Immaterial. 

Duns Scotus (in the end of the thirteenth 
century) drew back somewhat from the ex- 
treme position of Aquiuas. He held that God 
alone is absolutely pure form ; all created 
beings, including angels and the soul, are 
composed of form and matter. The matter 
of the soul, however, is very different from 
the matter that constitutes bodies ; it is a 
created something, the basis of all finite ex- 
istence, including corporeal matter itself. 

But this protest was without effect. 
Aquinas had triumphed ; the utmost limit of 
abstraction in the line of dualism had been 
reached. 

Coming down now to modern times, we have 
to recognize Descartes, as, by pre-eminence, 
the philosopher of immaterialism (the word 
spirituality is not used by him). Still, it is not 
unlikely that John Calvin, who preceded 
him by a century, had a considerable share 
in making this the creed of religious ortho- 
doxy. 

Calvin substantially adopted the settlement 
of Aquinas. His views are found in his 



" Institutes," and in a short treatise " Oq 
the Sleep of the Soul," writ! !n against the 
doctrine that the soul is unconscious belweea 
death and the resurrection, a view that soma 
of the Reformers were inclmed to, in their 
opposition to purgatory. We follow Calvin's, 
phraseology in the "Institutes." The soul 
is an immortal essence, the nobler part of 
man ; it is a creation out of nothing, not an 
emanation ; it is essence without motion, not 
motion without essence. Its power of dis- 
tinguishing good and evil, the swiftness and 
wide range of its faculties (so opposed to the 
brutes), the power of conceiving the invisi- 
ble God — are evidences that it is incorporeal, 
being incompatible with body. Then as ta 
the vexed connection with space : the soul 
is not properly bounded by space ; still it oc- 
cupies the body as a habitation, animating its 
parts and endowing its organs for their sev- 
eral functions. The strength of Calvin's 
reasoning is still the " point-of -honor" argu- 
ment. 

Now for Descartes. It is not uncommon 
to style him the father of modern mental 
philosophy, so forcibly did he insist on the 
fundamental and inerasible distinction bew 
tween matter and mind. Matter' whose es- 
sence is extension, is known by the senses,, 
and is so studied by the physical observer ; 
mind, whose essence is thinking, can be 
known only by self -consciousness, the organ 
or faculty of the metaphysical observer. He 
made the distinction (which Held dwelt so 
much upon in his " Inquiry") between the 
mental element and the physical element ia 
sensation : the feeling that we call heat 
being one thing, the physical propert5'of the 
fire being a different thing. He vMited it as 
a cardinal principle that nothing conceivable 
by the power of the imagination could throw 
any light on the operations of thought ; 
which was merely stating that the feelings 
and thoughts of the mind were something- 
very different from a tree, a field, a river, or 
a palace, or anything else in the extended 
world. He argues for the immateriality of 
the mental aggregate, or thinking principle. 

Descartes was not without his theory of 
the physical accompaniments of the imma- 
terial principle. He assigned to the soul a 
definite centre or locality in the brain, 
naaiely, the small body near the base called 
the pineal gland. He explained the mode of 
action of the brain by the flow of animal 
spirits along the nerves ; but then the effect 
of these animal spirits was confined to thei 
manifestations of our animal life, and didf 
not connect themselves with the thinKing[ 
principle or the proper soul. It is well known; 
that he refused mind to animals, treating^ 
them as automatons or machines. In the 
fifth chapter of his " Discourse on Method " 
he goes ver}'' fully into what he considers 
the impassable distinctions betweea man and 
the brutes. 

For his clear conception of the difference 
between matter and mind, Descartes deserves 
all praise ; that was to establish a fact. Hi^ 
appended doctrine of an immaterial sub- 



46 



MIND AND BODY. 



«taace is an hypothesis, for which, even if 
argument would suffice to malce it intelligible 
iiud tenable, his aiguments were singularly- 
inadequate. He gives the often repeated 
disiinctioa between the divisibility of matter 
and the indivisibility of mind ; but although 
this could impose even upon Bishop But- 
ler, it was blown to tatters like a cobweb by 
tlie materialists. True, a lump of brass is 
divisible ; but make it into a watch, and you 
cau no longer split it into two without de- 
stroying it as a watch. You can no more cut 
a man's brain into two working brains than 
3'ou can bisect his intelligence. 

The great rival of Descartes in his own 
time was Hobbes, with whom substance was 
body, or matter, and nothing else. Spirit 
meant only a subtle invisible fluid, or ether 
(whose existence, however, he took no ac- 
count of in his philosophy) ; ©r else it was a 
^■host, or mere phantom of imagination. But 
we must go on to the eighteenth-century as- 
pect of the question. 

Locke's allusions to the subject are charac- 
terized by his usual sagacity and sobiiety. 
He cannot see that we are in any way com- 
mitted to the immaterial nature of mind, in- 
f\smdch as Omnipotence might, for anything 
we know, as easily annex the power of 
thinking to matter directly, as to an imma- 
terial substance to be itself annexed to mat- 
ter. These are his words : " He who will 
give himself leave to consider freely, and 
look into the dark and intricate part of each 
hypothesis, will scarcely find his reason able 
to determine him fixedly for or against the 
soul's materiality." 

About the close of Locke's career begins 
the great materialistic campaign of the last 
century, which m&j be said to culminate in 
Priestley. Before Priestley, the most impor- 
tant names on his side (the materialist) were 
Toland and Collins ; while Samuel Clarke, a 
leader of the opposition, attacked more es- 
pecially the materialism of the now forgotten 
Dodwell. Priestley bad to contend with 
Price, whom he always treated with respect, 
and with Baxter, an extreme spiritualist, 
now a shade. Bishop Butler had argued for 
spiritualism in his " Analogy," but had con- 
tributed nothing new to the defence. It will 
be enough for us to advert to the Priestley 
stage of the English controversy ; but first 
let us dispose of De la Mettrie and the conti- 
nental materialists, who belong to the earlier 
half of the century. 

De la Mettrie is introduced to us by Car- 
lyle, among the boon companions of Freder- 
ick, in the early part of his reign. He was 
a bon vivant, a diner-out, and a wit, as well 
as a philosopher ; and his tragical end has 
no doubt been often used as a moral against 
too great fondness for good eating. His 
books, "Man a Machine" " Man a Plant," 
iire written with much vivacity and clever- 
ness of illustration, and were well suited to 
make an impressioii upon the more sceptical 
f f his contemporaries. They are mainly 
irtr'e up of copious illuslrations of the influ- 
* uf'-' exercised over the feelings by physical 



conditions, such, for example, as food, stim- 
ulants, etc. " What a vast power there is in 
a repast ! Joy revives in a disconsolate 
heart ; it is transfused into the souls of all 
tile guests, who express it by amiible con- 
versation or music." Again: " Kaw meat 
gives fierceness to animals, and would do the 
same to man. This is so true that the English, 
wlio eat their meat underdone, seem to par- 
take of this fierceness more or less, as shown 
in pride, hatred, contempt of other nations.' 
So, "Man has been broken and trained by 
degrees, like other animals. . . . We are 
what we are by our organization in the first 
instance, and by instruction in the second. 
. . . Man is framed of materials, not ex- 
ceeding in value those of other animals ; na- 
ture has made use of one and the same paste 
— she has only diversified the ferment in 
working it up. . . . We may call the body 
an enlightened machine. , . . It is a clock, 
and the fresh chyle from the food is the 
spring." He goes slightly into the question 
whether matter has an inherent activity, ad- 
ducing examples in the affirmative ; but we 
shall see this position better argued by 
Priestley. He will not undertake to decide 
the existence of a Deity, the arguments for 
and against are so nearl}" balanced in his 
mind, and he is equally uncertain about im- 
mortality ; but he thinks materialism the 
most intelligible doctrine, as contenting it- 
self with one substance, the most comfort- 
able to entertain, and the most calculated to 
promote universal benevolence. . 

A similar strain of argument, with less wit 
and more logical concatenation, appears in 
the " Syst^me de la Nature" of Baron d'Hol- 
bach ; but we need not occupy space with 
him. 

Joseph Priestley, besides being a volumin- 
ous and able writer on theology," mental phi- 
losophy, history, and many other things, was 
a distinguished experimenter in physical sci- 
ence, as his well-known discoveries attest. 
He commences his work on " Materialism" 
by an appeal to what was emphatically the 
eighteenth-century logic — not the logic of 
Aristotle, nor even of Bacon, but the logic of 
Newton : for Newton was a logician by pre- 
cept no less than by example ; his four rules 
of philosophizing were not merely given at 
the outset of every work on natural philoso- 
phy, but were laid to heart and acted out by 
scientific inquirers. Priestley was also, in 
consequence of his scientific studies, the fit 
man to deal with the crude and inaccurate 
notion, adduced as an argument for spiritual- 
ism (8), that matter is a solid, impenetrable, 
inert substance, and wholly passive and in- 
different to rest or motion, except as acted 
on by some power foreign to itself. In op- 
position to this view, he shows that matter is 
essentially gifted with active properties, with 
powers of attraction and repulsion ; even its 
impenetrability involves repulsive forces. 
Indeed, he is disposed to adopt the theory of 
Bosoovich, which makes matter nothing else 
than an aggregate of centres of force, of 
points of attraction and repulsion, one toward 



. MIND AND BODY. 



47 



the other. The inherent activity of matter 
being thus vindicated, why should it not be 
able to sustain the special activity of thought, 
seeing that sensation and perception have 
never been found but in an organized system 
of matter ? It being a rigid canon of the New- 
tonian logic, not to muliiply causes without 
necessity, we should adhere to a single sub- 
stance until it be shown, which at present it 
cannot, that the properties of mind are in- 
compatible with the properties of matter. 
In following out his argument, he presents a 
Well -digested summary of the facts referring 
to the concomitance of body and mind ; and 
cleverly retorts the doctrine that the body 
impedes the exercise of our powers, by re- 
marking that, on that theory, our mental 
powers should be steadily increasing as we 
approach to dissolution He urges the diffi- 
culties of having an immaterial and un- 
extended substance joined with matter in the 
relation of place, as well as mechanically 
acting upon matter — points that had never 
indeed been cleared up to the satisfaction of 
the immaterialists themselves. As the Fath- 
ers had often said, there can be no mutual 
influence where there is no common property. 
He is especially indignant at the practice of 
shielding absurdity under the venerable name 
of "mystery." He would doubtless have 
applied Newton's rule against multiplying 
causes, to forbid the multiplying of mysteries 
without necessity'. And, in gcneial, as to a 
spiritual substance, the vulgar, lilie the an- 
cients and the first Fathers, will never be 
able to see the difference between it and noth- 
ing at all. He then takes up the Scripture 
view of the question, endeavoring to prove 
that the language of the Old Testament im- 
plies only a single substance with spiritual 
properties or adjuncts ; that the same view is 
most conformable to the New Testament ; 
and that the doctrine of a separate soul em- 
barrasses the whole system of Cliristianity. 
Of course he will not admit a middle stale, 
between death and the resurrection ; nor that 
such a state apart from the body has any- 
thing to do with the immortality of the soul, 
which doctrine he rests exclusively on the 
Scripture testimony to a general resurrection. 

Such is a summary of by far the ablest de- 
fence uf the single-substance doctrine in the 
last century. It became the creed of great 
numbers at the end of that century and the 
beginning of this. The celebrated Robert 
Hall was for many years a materialist in 
Priestley's sense ; and the occasioci of his 
ceasing to be so can hardly be considered as 
a refutation of the doctrine. He says of him- 
self, that " he buried his materialism in his 
father's grave." 

Coming d()wn to the present centurj^, we 
may take Dugald Stewart as a fair represen- 
tative of the metaphysicians. We find him 
repudiating materialism ; but when we in- 
quire what he understands by it, we see that 
he really means the confounding of mind and 
matter under one common phenomenon, or 
one set of properties — the material properties; 
as in an unu:uarded ohrase of Hume's, " that 



little aifitation of the brain that we call 
thought ;" for though an agitation of the 
brain accompanies thought, it is not itself the 
thought.* Stewart savs that " although we 
have the strongest evidence that there is a 
thinkmg and sentient principle within us 
essentially distinct from matter, yet we have 
no direct evidence of the possibility of this 
principle exercising its various powers in a 
separate state from the body. On the con- 
trary, the union of the two, while it subsists, 
is evidently of the most intimate nature." 
And he goes on to adduce some of the strong 
facts that show the dependence of mind on 
body. He says that the mental philosopher 
is rightly occupied in ascertaining " the laws 
that regulate their connection, without at- 
tempting to explain in what manner they are 
united." 

The late Professor Ferrier, who in his 
" Institutes of Metaphysics" has set forth, in 
a nomenclature of his own, the contrast or an- 
tithesis of mind and matter, bestows a some- 
what contemptuous handling on the com- 
mon place spiritualism. We quote his 
words : 

" In vain does the spiritualist found an ar- 
gument for the existence of a separate im- 
mateiial substance on the alleged incompati- 
bility of the intellectual and the physical 
phenomena to co-inhere in the same sub- 
stratum. Materiality may very well stand 
the brunt of that unshotted broadside. This 
mild artifice can scarcely expect to be treated 
as a serious observation. Such an hypothesis 
cannot be meant to be in earnest. Who is to 
dictate to nature what phenomena, or what 
qualities inhere in what substances ; what 
effects may result from what causes ? Mat- 
ter is already in the field as an acknowledged 
entity — this both parties admit. Mind, con- 
sidered as an independent entity, is not so 
unmistakably in the field ! Therefore, as 
entities are not to be multiplied without 
necessity, we are not entitled to postulate a 
new cause, so long as it is possible to account 
for the phenomena by a cause already in ex- 
istence ; which possibility has never yet been 
disproved." 

Hamilton remarks that we cannot localize 
the mind, without clothing it with the attri- 
butes of extension and place ; and to make 
the seat or locality a point only aggravates the 
difficulty. We have no right to limit it to 
any part of the organism ; the mind cannot 

* It is not of tea that either single-substance mate- 
rialism or double materialism is exemplified by mod- 
erns, except through incaution in the use of language. 
Robert Hooke (quoted by Dr. Reid, " Intellectual^ Pow- 
ers," Essay II., chap, ix.) indulges in a materialistic 
strain, not unlike some of the ancient philO!*opher3. 
" In his lectures upon Light he makes ideas to be 
material substances ; and thinks that the brain is fur- 
nished with a proper kind of matter, for fabricating 
the ideas of each sense. The ideas of siirht, he thinks, 
are formed of a kind of matt^•r resembling the J3ono- 
nian stone, or some kind of phosphorous." 

A materialism of this kind pervades Darwin's Zoo- 
nornia, from which the following expressions are 
quoted by Mill ("Logic," Fallacies, chap, iii § 8): 
The word idea " is defined a contraction, a motion, or 
configuraiion. of the fiDies wnich constitute the im- 
mediate organ of sense ;" " our ideas are animal 
mocioos of Che organ of sense." 



48 



MIND A.ND BODY. 



be denied to feel at the finger points. The 
sum of our knowledge of the connection of 
mind and body is, that the mentul modifica- 
tions are dependent on certain corporeal con- 
ditions ; but of the nature of these conditions 
we know nothing. (Lectures on Meta- 
physics, ii., 127.) 

The reply may be given to Hamilton that, 
in one signification of the words, it is correct 
to say ihaL we know nothing of the corporeal 
conaitiuus of mind, namely, that tliey are 
generically distinct from mind ilself ; that 
they cannot be resolved into mind, and mind 
Cannot be resolved into them. In an- 
other signification, however, we know a 
great deal respecting these material condilions 
and ma}"- one day know all that is to be known 
about them. Indeed, something has been 
known from the very beginning of human 
observation. 

It is quite true, as Hamilton remarks, that 
to localize mind is to run into contradiction 
and absurdiiy. This, however, may be 
averted by adapting our phraseology to the 
peculiar nature of the things ; in speaking of 
mind, we must avoid the language of exten- 
sion or place. 

Mansel ("Prolegomena Logica," p. 138) 
remarks : "To this day we are ignorant 
how matter and mind operate on each other. 
We know not how the material refractions 
of the eye are connected with the mental 
sensation of seeing, nor how the determina- 
tion of the will operates in bringing about 
^the motion of the muscles." Here there is 
'the erroneous assumption that power or 
eflBciency belongs to mind in the abstract. 
Assume the alliance of mind and matter, and 
there is nothing hopeless in seeking an ex- 
planation of their mutual action. The alli- 
ance itself is an unaccountable, because an 
ultimate, fact ; of it no explanation is com- 
petent or relevant, except generalizing it to 
the uttermost. 

Again, says Mansel, " We can investigate 
severally the phenomena of matter and mind, 
as we can severally the constitution of the 
earth, and the architecture of the heavens ; 
we seek the boundary line of iheir junction, 
as the child chases the horizon, only to dis- 
cover that it flies as we pursue it." The 
mistake is in looking for a boundary line at 
all. We look fur a boundary between two 
parishes, two estates, two adjoining tissues 
of the animal framework ; but between the 
extended body and the unexteuded mind the 
search for a boundary line is incompetent 
and unmeaning. 

I now pass to the latest phase of this event- 
ful history. 

A movement in favor of materialism has 
arisen in Germany within the last twenty 
years ; which is in part a reaction from the 
high-flown philosophy that so long prevailed, 
and in part an application to mind of the 
physical science of this century, as Priestley 
in his day applied the physical science of the 
last century. 

It is to be remarked, however, that 
spiritualism, in the form of dualism, was 



never the philosophic creed of Germany, 
Kant, who ridiculed alike materialism and 
idealism, yet did not ascribe to matter a real 
existence by the side of an independent 
spiritual principle. Fichte and Hegel, being 
overmastered with the idea of unity, had to 
make a choice ; and attaching themselves by 
preference to the dignified mental side, be- 
came pantheists of an ideal school, resolving 
all existence into mind or ideas. People gen- 
erally, when tired of Kant's critical position, 
became either materialists or idealists, and 
not believers in two substances. 

As regards the recent materialistic move- 
ment, scientific men first broke ground. 
Emphatic utterances were made by such men 
as Miiller, Wagner, Liebig, and Du Boia 
Raymond, all tending to rehabilitate the 
powers of matter. But the outspoken and 
thorough-going materialism begins with 
Moleschott, who in 1853 published his 
" Circular Course of Life," a series of letters 
addressed to Liebig. In 1854 Vogt came into 
the field, in an attack upon Wagner, the great 
physiologist, who had said that, although 
nothing in physiology suggested a distinct 
soul, yet this tenet was demanded by man's 
moral relations. In a series of subsequent 
works, Vogt has urged the dependence of 
mind on body, in extreme and unneces?arily 
offensive language. The third and most pop- 
ular expounder of these views is Biichner, in 
his book "Matter and Force," which was 
first published in 1856, has run through a 
great many editions, and has been also trans- 
lated into English. 

It is not necessary to expatiate upon the 
views of these writers. Their handling turns 
partly on the accumulated proofs, physio- 
logical and other, of the dependence of mind 
on body, and partly upon the more recent 
doctrines as to matter and force, summed up 
in the grand generality known as the correla- 
tion, conservation, or persistence of force. 
This principle enables them to surpass 
Priestley in the cogency of their arguments 
for the essential and inherent activity of mat- 
ter ; all known force being in fact embodied 
in matter. Their favorite text is " no matter 
without force, and no force without matter.'* 
The notion of a quiescent impassive block, 
called matter, coming under the influence of 
forces ab extra, or superimposed, is, they 
hold, less tenable now than ever. Are not 
the motions of the planets maintained by the 
inherent power of matter ? And, besides the 
two great properties called inertia and grav- 
ity, every portion of matter has a certain 
temperature, consisting, it is believed, of in- 
testine motions of the atoms, and able to ex- 
ert force upon any adjoining matter thai 
happens to be of a lower temperature. Then 
they ask with Priestley and Perrier, "Why 
introduce a new entity, or rather a nonentity, 
until we see what these multifarious activi- 
ties of matter are able to accomplish ?" 
They also reply to the spiritualistic argu- 
ment based on the personal identity of the 
mind and the constant flux of the body, by 
the obvious remark, that the body has it 



MIND a:;D CODY. 



Identity too, in type or form, although the 
constituent molecules may change and be re- 
placed. 

It is not to be supposed that these writers 
are in the ascendant in Germany, or that their 
language is always metaphysically guarded. 
Still, having written intelligible books, easily 
appealing to apalpable anddeteiminate class 
of facts, they have been extensively read ; 
and their ideas, or the Gcientific facts that 
they are based on, are modifying even the 
highest transcendentalism of that remarkable 
country. 

The rapid sketch thus given seems to tell 
its own tale as to the future. The arguments 



49 

for the two tubstaoces have, we believe, nan 
entirely lost their validity ; they are no long>Gl 
compatible with ascertained science and clear 
thinking. The one substance, with two seta 
of properties, two sides, the physical and the 
mental— a double-faced unity — would appeur 
to comply with all the exigencies of the case. 
We are to deal with this, as in the language 
of the Athanasian Creed, not confounding the 
persons nor dividing the substance. The 
mind is destined to be a double study — to 
conjoin the mental philosopher with the 
physical philosopher ; and the innmentai*y 
glimpse of Aristotle is at last oonveited into 
a clear and steady Yi^ion. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAP. PAGE 

I. Question Stated 1 

n. Connection of Mind and Body 2 

m. The Connection Viewed as Correspondence, 

or Concomitant Variation 5 

rv. GeneralLawsof Alliance of Mind and Body: 11 



CHAP. T?X&R 

The Feelings and the Will 11 

v. Thelntellect 20 

VT. How are mind and Body United? 80 

Vn. History of the Theories of the Soul 84 



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